


Ninja Master Sakura

by MarVogue



Category: Cardcaptor Sakura, Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-04 18:31:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 50,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6669634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarVogue/pseuds/MarVogue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sakura Haruno finds herself taking the place of Sakura Kinomoto as she falls into the world of Cardcaptors, finding herself forced to seal away the magical cards. But why are all the ninjas that she knows in this world too? And why have they become the Clow Cards? Can she find her way out of it or will she be forever lost in this world of magic? Stay tuned!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Windy

“Sakura!”

I jolted up from my daze and looked up, only to get promptly smacked in the face by a soccer ball.

“Oi, forehead, are you okay?” Ino bounded over, grabbing the ball before it rolled too far away from her. She held it on her hip with her arm and frowned at me. “Pay attention to the game!”

“Sorry.” I mumbled back, rubbing the spot on my unfortunately large forehead that was sure to swell up. That hit to the face is just yet another great way for people to notice how big my forehead is, and I’m pretty sure Ino-pig did it on purpose.

“Are you okay, Sakura?” The gym teacher, Anko of all people, called to me from my left.

I turned to her and smiled to show that I was completely fine. “Yup!”

She nodded and turned back to paying attention to the game, not really caring about my state of well being. Not a second later, she whistled as one of the boys was caught grabbing the ball with his hands and running with it. A hearty laugh, a scorn, and the ball returned later, the game started up again.

My eyes locked on Ino, who was wearing the gym uniform with a thin red jersey over it to differentiate the teams. She had somehow ended up here with me, in this odd world where chakra didn’t seem to work. When I tried to talk to her about it, she acted as if my claims about chakra and shinobi and Konoha were all nonsense. She actually thought that I was on a sugar rush of some kind, or that I had watched a crazy television show, or that I had some super crazy fantasy dream. And while I did have a crazy dream, it wasn’t about Konoha. I knew that _I_ was the one living a dream. There was no way that I could’ve suddenly shifted from my comfortable bed at home to the one in this place. I had to be dreaming it all up as I went along. And I don’t care if that soccer ball to the face felt so real that I was ready to burst into tears at any second. This place wasn’t real, and Ino was just acting the part. It made sense, since this morning I had a crazy run-in with my supposed “brother”, who turned out to be Kiba, and father, who turned out to be the freak pervert Jiraya. When Ino then met me at the door, winked at Kiba (Why _him_ of all people? That’s gross!), and then dragged me out saying we had to go to _school_ of all places, I knew something had gone amiss. If it turned out everyone was getting together and playing a prank on me, they were doing it surprisingly well. Ino typically can’t keep secrets, so her amount of dedication and effort to keep her mouth shut was surprising. I was sure that any second now, she’d burst.

Another ball was headed in my direction. “Sakura!” And this time I was sure I spotted Ino purposely kick it in my direction.

“You pig!” I yelled back, throwing my arm out and punching the ball. With my chakra gone (or maybe repressed by something?), the hit wasn’t as strong as I wanted it to be and the ball only flew back a few meters.

“Bring it, forehead!” Ino was beckoning me over with a finger, the other one on her hip.

Anko was okay with it too. “Alright then! Sakura, you’re in! You there—” she pointed to the guy had been running with the ball earlier, “—you’re out!” The guy pouted but passed me his blue jersey anyway. I tugged it on and jogged onto the field. “KICK SOME BALLS!” She threw behind me with an evil chuckle. I threw a thumb up over my shoulder as I silently acknowledged her demand.

As soon as the game started again, Ino and I were at each other. The ball started in my direction and I sprinted to it, and then Ino suddenly appeared at my side, and we started elbowing and tripping and shoving each other around as the intensity of our rivalry grew. The other classmates got pumped up as well and started buzzing with excitement, joining along every time we got near. I would pass the ball as soon as possible, though it got hard with the amount of falls and shoves I received. Hair pulling and scratching soon ensued, and a few guys got hit where the sun didn’t shine, and soon enough we had to be stopped. Anko looked like she didn’t want to stop it though, but had to since the day had ended.

“Alright maggots! Game’s over! Head home!”

We tossed the jerseys in a giant red and blue pile before running over to the changing rooms. I moved over to my locker and peeled off my clothes, feeling myself for bruises (other than the one already on my face). I felt sore spots, knowing they were growing into bad bruises, and wished I had my chakra to heal myself. I could do it so easily back home that my sudden lack of ability made me appreciate it more now that it was gone.

“Kiba and I are going on a date now.” Ino stated, leaning against the gym locker next to mine. I was in the middle of pulling on my shirt and froze, staring at her with wide eyes. Since when was she even attracted to that guy? Oh yeah, that’s right, she’s not normal anymore. Not that she ever was.

“Have fun?” I patted down the sailor uniform shirt and made sure my white skirt wasn’t accidentally tucked into my underwear before continuing with my tie.

Ino scoffed and rolled her eyes, strutting away, her own skirt too high for comfort and the bottom of her shirt purposely cut too short. “You’re just jealous.” She threw over her shoulder.

I mimicked her actions and left the room behind her. “If you want to date him, go ahead.”

She frowned at me like I was an idiot. In this world, I might as well be. “We’re already dating.”

Oops, that was a mistake. I tried not to lose the flow of conversation. “Good for you then.”

“Yup,” we turned a corner for our not-gym lockers and she instantly beamed. “Kiba!”

“Ino!” He called back, his arms up in a wave as he leaned on the door to her locker. His dog was sticking its head out of the hood of his jacket, barking excitedly in greeting. With a leap, the little dog was running over and licking her long legs, clearly a sign that it knew her for a while, probably more than just the ninja meetings and debriefings we used to get as the Rookie 12 (minus a few missing ninjas). She giggled and petted it back in affection, eventually reaching down to pick it up. Akamaru squealed happily and lapped at her face.

“Hey, squirt!” Kiba greeted me as he pushed himself to his feet, just as I neared (Ino and I were locker neighbors, so he took that information to his advantage). His fist landed in my long pink hair in a noogie and my hair fluffed out and turned into a tangled mess. I whined and pushed him away, but he didn’t mind it, since Ino tucked herself into his chest and snuggled with him in broad daylight, Akamaru still in her arms. I stuck out my tongue at them and turned away.

“Get over it, twerp!” Kiba threw to me after they shared a quick kiss. I gagged at them and Ino pulled a face at me in response. Akamaru barked at me as if he was actually offended by the faces we were pulling, as if they were directed towards him.

“Oh, right, dad called me and he said that he came home early and wanted to give you something.” Kiba piped up when I opened my locker and pulled out my rollerblades. God forbid how I even knew how to use them. It was a miracle I even survived this morning. “It’s probably something gaudy and perverted again.”

“Great,” I grumbled sarcastically, pulling off my indoor shoes and returning them to their home in my locker, “something else I totally need.”

I pulled on my blades and tightened them as hard as I could on my feet to make sure they wouldn’t fall off. I pulled on the damning elbow and knee protectors, and then finally a matching helmet to ensure my utmost safety. Looking back at this morning’s fiasco, it was a good thing Ino had forced me to bring them along or else I would’ve probably died a few times. It’s not as if I could die in a dream, but it would still be horrendous. She had wanted to give me a ride in her limo—I don’t even know how that was possible—but I refused, opting to skate there, thinking it was easy as one two three. She was fine with it, warned me about proper padding, and then left in her giant vehicle. I practically had to stalk it to know where the school was. And now I had to make my way back. All on my own. I don’t even know what my “house” looked like!

I grabbed my backpack and closed my locker before starting on my way, waving goodbye to my supposed friend and brother. As I made the route back, I started to remind myself of clues that lead to the house. There was the slope, which I had used to speed up, there was the Penguin Park, which I had smiled fondly at since the kids playing in it were really cute, there was the mailbox, which I had almost skated right into in order to change streets. There was the large pedestrian trail between isles of Sakura trees, and then there was also the mail man, but he wasn’t here this late in the day, so I’d have to find another clue that would mean that I need to turn into the right driveway.

I didn’t have to worry about a thing though, because Jiraya was leaving the house and heading for his car.

“Jiraya!” I called, but the man looked wildly around in confusion at hearing his name, and I realized I had to play the part for him to notice me. “Er, I mean—dad!” His eyes finally found my person. I felt violated by his simple gaze, and that made me worry about the gift he had planned for me.

“Sakura-chan! My darling!” He ruffled my hair, and I was glad he didn’t do anything more. “No cheerleading today?”

I had cheerleading? My bad. “Not today.” I lied flawlessly.

“Okay, well, daddy was just taking a short break. I have to go back to work now,” he chirped, passing by me to open the door to his car. I could only wonder if his “work” included spying on women in bath houses. I pushed away from the sidewalk and made my way to the door, twirling in my skates so that I could still see him and skate backwards at the same time.

“I left your gift on your desk! You’re going to love it!” He added. I really hoped it was something useful, like kunai or shuriken or even just a medical kit. This place may look innocent, but it was probably lurking with dangerous secrets ready to devour me and then spit me out. But knowing Jiraya, it was probably something indecent like lingerie I didn’t need. I was ten years old in this world, and let’s hope that’s how he treated me.

“I’m sure I will.” I smiled like a good daughter and waited for him to enter his car and drive off. Once I was sure he was gone, I let myself fall over so that I could quickly yank off my skates with a grunt and swear to never wear them ever again. I could slowly feel my blood pumping back into my feet like the faithful magical thick liquid it was. I pulled off my backpack as well and rummaged around for my house key, dropping my protector pads inside afterwards. Unlocking and entering my house, I dropped the infernal pink foot devices and made myself a glass of milk before moving upstairs to my room.

Everything still looked as normal as it was this morning. My desk was unmoved, my bed was actually made for once (and by myself too!), my pajamas were littering said comfortable mattress from my rushing this morning, and there was a totally cliché white box with a red bow waiting on my beautiful wooden desk. I finished my drink before setting it aside and grabbing the box. I moved to my bed with it and stared for five minutes, guessing its contents, before moving along and pulling off the top.

My eyes landed on the item.

“THE PERVERT!”

I immediately slammed the cover back down.

He had given me his latest Icha Icha book.

I was going to strangle him one day.

But until then, this had got to go.

I wanted to hide it somewhere, but not in my room, just in case I decided to have friends over and they would find the damn thing. So I tucked the box under my arm like a football player and searched for a place to hide it that wasn’t in the rooms, the kitchen, or the living room. I found myself in the basement, surrounded by Jiraya’s libraries—which, surprisingly, didn’t hold any porn (must all be in his room)—and random antique objects. The basement had been incorporated as a storage closet, and it was pretty much the best place to hide anything (probably even a dead body).

After a quick survey of potential hiding places, I found a rather empty box with very few books. I put my box inside and used the books already inside to cover it and turn into camouflage, trying to make it look as natural as possible. When the deed was done, I wiped my hands on my skirt and started back up the stairs.

But then a book started glowing from Jiraya’s bookcase and I started to wonder if the man had set up a security system in here. I backtracked and stared at the glowing spine, wondering if I had set something off. I wanted to ignore it, but my nature of loving books and reading books and adoring books had never brought me to finding one that _glowed_. I was too curious to care if I was making a mistake, so I grabbed the spine and pulled it out of the bookcase.

The light faded and I found myself with a crimson book. It had gold embroidery and protective corners, and a latch at the front with a lock. Behind it was a large picture of a majestic fox, with nine long and thick, orange and white, fluffy tails circling its figure, along with a sun attached to a chain. There were the words “The Clow” written on the fancy strip of paper-esque art at the top, so I thought was safe to assume that it was a journal of sorts (probably about clouds or foxes?). I turned it around, trying to see if there was anything else that could distinguish it, but I couldn’t even find a barcode or even just a journal price. The back had a golden spell circle, but nothing else. I wanted to drop it and go—this was Jiraya’s journal we were talking about. It didn’t matter if it was anyone else’s book, but since it was his, I was worried about opening it. I knew I shouldn’t, because what was on the other side could be disastrous and perverted, but then I wondered why he would have a non-porn related bookshelf in this room. So this book couldn’t be all bad. Besides, it had a picture of the nine-tailed fox on the cover, something only Konoha and the Shinobi world would know about. This could be a clue as to why this world felt so real, and why everyone was acting strange, and why no one were shinobi, and even why I was the only one who remembered what was the truth.

I pulled back the latch and opened the book, just as I wondered when I started thinking that this world was real.

The inside was nothing that I expected.

The page were hollowed out—like how people on diets would hide their chocolate bars from their family—and in the space were cards. I picked up the first one and inspected it—it was similar to the book as in the back was crimson red with a golden sun and moon, around it a large golden spell circle. On the front was a drawing of someone familiar; a man. He had his arms crossing over his chest as they circled his face, palms facing outward. His eyes were closed and there was a mystifying wind the circled the rest of his body almost like wings. His hair was pushed back and there were blue, makeshift wing tattoos on his forehead. I glanced down the card and found the same paper-like art at the bottom, this one saying something different.

“Win…dy?”

The card started to glow the same gold colour as the book did earlier, and an inexistent wind picked up, blowing my hair in my face as I squinted to see just what the hell was going on. I dropped the book and pushed back my hair just in time to spot the last of the rest of the cards phasing through the wall and disappearing with the force of the wind. A figure started morphing out of the card, becoming real in this basement, and I shrieked, backing up as far as I could, my back landing against a shelf as a person once stood where I used to be, stretching his arms.

“Finally free!” He sighed, before starting to stretch his arms. “Being stuck in that card sucks.”

“W-what the hell!” I gasped to myself, watching the back of the person. The gray and white camouflage scarf was familiar to me in a way I couldn’t understand, unable to pinpoint why that has significance to me. The beige shirt was warning me about something as well. I couldn’t dwell on it much, since he turned around at the sound of my voice, beady black eyes narrowing. I had to admit he looked nothing as what the card had depicted, but now that I could see his face, I could actually tell who he was. And that freaked me out.

“…Zaku?”

The confusion lifted from his face as soon as I spoke, and I could tell it was his turn to recognize me. He whirled so that his entire body was facing me, and he pointed. “You’re that bitch who bit me during the Chunin exams!”

Wait hold up. “You remember that?”

“Of course I do! Your crazy boyfriend snapped my arms off!”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” I hissed disdainfully, crossing my arms with a huff. “Orochimaru’s plan worked and he got Sasuke to abandon Konoha.” The boy merely blinked. “He’s no boyfriend of mine!”

“Yeah, well, I don’t care about that,” he waved off what I just said, as if it held no importance. “I want revenge!”

It was my turn not to react, because, hello, I had seen it coming. It seems like revenge is all that anybody wants lately.

He lunged at me, arms outstretched, probably to use his special air tubes inside his arms. I didn’t bother getting up, knowing he would have a harder time trying to reach me if I stayed low, and pulled my arms back. When he was close enough, I pushed one of his hands away with mine that was holding the card and then quickly punched his face in. Due to Tsunade’s training, focusing chakra in my hands and punching was what I did the most to solve problems, which became a bad habit of mine. Due to the lack of chakra, Zaku simply stumbled back instead of flying like my opponents usually did, which disappointed me, and he retaliated by holding a hand to my face and focusing energy, threatening to have me blown away instead.

I knew it was impossible from him. If I had no chakra, neither did he.

“Oi, you two, no fighting! Dattebayo!” A loud voice screeched nearby and Zaku froze. I shifted to the side so that I could see properly and Zaku looked over his shoulder and we found the book glowing. The boy in front of me cursed and thankfully backed off, crossing his arms as he leaned against another shelf. My eyes stayed glued to the book as another being materialized, though I already assumed who it was by the annoying catchphrase. What I didn’t expect, was his appearance.

The owner of the voice was a tiny fox plush toy.

“Naruto?” I asked tentatively, not really believing my eyes. He had to be using one of his transformation jutsus. “Is that you?”

“’Sup Sakura!” He chirped back, his voice matching the one I knew, lifting a hand in greeting. He quickly frowned though. “What happened to your face?”

I was sure that Zaku hadn’t hurt me, so I touched my face questionably. When I felt the sore spots, I remembered what had happened earlier today. “We played soccer really rough.”

“Okay.” He nodded without questioning it and propped himself on his rear paws, kinda like a bunny would. He pointed to the skies—or, at least, attempted to, since he had no fingers—with one paw and started excitedly, his tail swishing faster along. “I’m Naruto Uzumaki! Guardian of the Clow Book! I make sure none of them get into trouble, dattebayo!”

I spared a glance at Zaku, who was sulking in his little corner there. That must’ve been why he was so obedient at the sound of Naruto’s voice. Though I had no idea what the heck the book was and how those two came here, it _was_ nice to see Naruto here in this mess with me!

“I see Windy’s here, which is great!” Naruto beamed proudly at the boy, who merely glared back. I bit back a snicker at how Zaku wasn’t even called by his own name, even if that totally wasn’t funny. “You can already summon a Clow Card!”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Was it a good thing? “Sure?”

“Now let me see the rest of them…” He trailed off, jumping off the back of the book and flipping it right side up without even touching it. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. This dream had definitely passed the norms and done things that weren’t possible. He suddenly let out a loud screech and I winced and was forced to block my ears at it. Zaku didn’t even look fazed.

Naruto whirled on me, and he used the tiny wings on his back to push his face into the personal space of my own. He eyes were blood red with rage, and I was suddenly super aware that he was actually just in the Kyuubi’s form and that he could kill us all. “Where are they? WHERE.ARE. MY. CARDS?”

I hesitantly held out the Windy card, which was tightly clutched in my hands as if my life depended on it. He lightened up and snatched it from my hands, but then held out his paw again. “And the rest?”

“Obviously gone, idiot.” Zaku piped up, and I didn’t have to look at him to know that he rolled his eyes.

“And how?” Naruto hissed back, turning his red eyes on him.

“Well…” I drawled out, not really sure how to explain it. It didn’t really make sense to me. It didn’t even make sense for a dream world. “When I summoned Zaku, wind picked up and blew them away, right through the walls.”

Naruto’s eyes turned into slits at Zaku. “You did this!”

The boy just had to be overconfident. “ _Excuse me_ for having super strong wind.”

It turned into a round of who could blame someone else the most.

“You blew them all away!”

“You opened the book and let them free!”

“You were supposed to be guarding the book so that never happened!”

“It’s not as easy as it sounds!”

“Obviously, since you let them all fly away!”

“Don’t you start with me!”

“I can start with whoever I want!”

“Can someone explain to me why in the world you—” I pointed at fox-Naruto. “—are in that form?”

“What form?” He stretched his paws and looked down at himself, looking for what could have set me off. “I always look like this!”

Zaku and I shared a look. Clearly, he was on the same page as me and remembered the Shinobi world, but oddly enough, Naruto didn’t. This was getting confusing. Why was Haku, my enemy, the only one I could relate to? I don’t want that! I don’t even want to talk with him, let alone have him be my friend! I really hope it wouldn’t get to that. We were about to start a fight a few minutes ago!

“No, you don’t.” I denied immediately. “You used to be a person, like us. Blond hair, blue eyes, tan skin—” I was cut short abruptly by a hand on my mouth. Turning my eyes, it was Zaku, and I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at him. (The wind pipe in his palm was freaking me out too.)

“Don’t bother,” he whispered in my ear, “that guy’s been talking like that ever since we ended up in that book. He won’t believe he’s human.”

“Oh, _that_ form?” Naruto suddenly piped up, overwriting our voices. “That’s my beast form, dattebatyo!”

I could only blink. Zaku’s eyes went wide at the man’s idiocy, and he slapped a hand on his mouth to hold back his snicker.

“Beast?”I asked.  Human is human, not a beast.

“Yeah!” He chirped, flying back to his book and bouncing excitedly on all fours. “I would show you it right now, but I need the Earth and Fiery Clow Cards to do that!” He sent a menacing glare to both of us, mostly me, for losing them.

I gulped, not really wanting to get mad with him. He was, after all, the Kyuubi’s container. But it’s true that since he was in that tiny form, he’s practically harmless. I reached out and patted his head, and he instantly replied, leaning up and rubbing his face in my palm. His face turned pleasant and he started purring just like a cat.

“Oh yeah!” He growled approvingly, practically putting his entire face in my hand as I started scratching his fur. “That’s the spot!” But then he blinked and roughly shoved my hand away. “You can’t bribe me with a good scratching! That is it!” He flew back in my face, pushing one of his paws against my nose. “You’re going to help me get the cards back!”

I frowned. If any of them were like Zaku, it wasn’t going to end well. I started to regret my curiosity.  “What?”

“Stand up.” He demanded before flying back, using his invisible powers to lift the book in the air next to him and closing it back up again. I noticed that the original fox design on it was gone, as if Naruto himself had been it and now that he was out of the book, he was no longer on it. This wasn’t making much sense to me anymore.

I did as he told me to and waited for his next command, wary about what he was planning. I really hope it was nothing like brawl or use my chakra, because that I couldn’t do anymore.

“Wait no—” Zaku refused profusely, jumping between us. He pointed back at me angrily. “I don’t want her as my master! She’s a girl! And weak and stupid—”

I grabbed his hand from my personal space bubble and twisted it. “What was that?” I hissed dangerously. How dare he insult me while I’m standing right here?

He didn’t answer, turning his face towards me with a glare. He didn’t bother to resist, but rather opened his palm, and I felt him charge power in his arms.

“Ha!” I scoffed, rolling my eyes at how conceited he was, twisting his hand further. “You can’t use your chakra—” The strongest blast of wind I ever felt collided with my chest, forcing me to fly back and collide with a top section of a book shelf. I collapsed back on the ground and felt the metal behind me shake. A few books tumbled down, but the frame stayed set in the ground, at which I sighed in relief. I looked back up at the two boys—er one boy and fox—with wide eyes and gasped, the wind knocked out of me. “How—?”

“Every Clow Card has special abilities.” Naruto told me matter-of-factly, not at all bothered by the fact that that freaking hurt. Zaku’s wind blast was somehow stronger than I remembered it. “Windy here is wind, obviously, so he can control wind.”

“Basically,” Zaku was giving a look at Naruto, like what he said was stupid and he needed help, “as a Clow Card, I’m allowed to one type or kind of jutsu (as long as the card lets me) in my arsenal, unlike you, who can’t do anything.”

I frowned at the man. “That’s not fair!”

“Life isn’t fair!” He sneered back, snickering afterwards.

“I know how to make it fair!” Naruto yelled to me, and Zaku snapped his face back in the fox’s direction.

“Don’t you dare—”

_“Key to the seal!”_

“No!”

A glowing gold spell circle appeared between us, and the entire room faded to darkness, as if we’ve entered a new dimension. The book was still with us though, but Zaku somehow vanished, as did the rest of the basement (thank goodness; I don’t think I could handle more of Zaku’s interruptions). Naruto was somehow keeping himself up in the air without having to flap his magical wings on his back—even if foxes technically weren’t able to fly, even if they did have wings. The book was still hovering there, and it was messing with my mind.

 _“This girl will carry out the sacred promise! Her name is Sakura. I command you to bestow her with your magical powers!”_ A circle of bright light formed on the lock and it fluttered over to the center of the bright golden spell circle, hovering in mid air. Why did everything have to hover? My brain was hurting trying to reject this crazy nonsense.

 _“Release the power!”_ The light grew brighter and suddenly expanded, repelling everything it touched and covering the entire dark room. A tough wave of energy I couldn’t see, but rather feel against my body, was pushing me back, like the strong wind of a tempest. I held out my arms in front of me, protecting me as I squinted through the bright light. I could distinctly spy an object grow where the ball of light use to be, and something inside of me was telling me to near it.

I took a few steps forward and stepped inside the magic circle, and I felt a flow of energy instantly, strengthening me and my resolve. Something was beckoning me further, to grasp what’s waiting for me and own it with my own two hands. I extended one of my arms and wrapped my fingers around the item, my fingers meeting a cool cylinder of energy. With another flash, the object stretched horizontally and the light receded inside the growing staff, the space returning dark as I could see all around me again, the golden circle still underneath my feet.

Naruto was pumping his fists in excitement in front of me. “Alright, dattebayo! _I, Naruto Uzumaki, name Sakura: Cardcaptor!_ ”

I had to say that the name ‘Cardcaptor’ was kinda lame and totally obvious, since I _am_ going to have to capture the cards I let loose, but at least the staff was pretty cool. It was pink—like my hair!—and had gold wrapped around it on both sides. The head was the shape of a bird, with a red beak and white wings that were really alike to the ones Naruto had on his back. The last touches were the gems; one on the end and one working as an eye on the staff’s head.

The spell circle under my feet vanished and the force trying to repel me went with it. The basement faded back in, and so did Zaku. He took one look at the staff in my hands and fell to his knees like a weeping baby that lost his favorite toy.

“I can’t believe I have such a lame and weak and horrible master! I’m too good to have a master! This sucks!”

“Technically,” Naruto flew over to my shoulder, sitting on it so that he could reach my ear and whisper into it, “you’re only his master as long as you write your name on his card, dattebayo!”

Zaku heard that though, and his head snapped up with hope shining in his eyes. “Really?”

“Here!” Naruto passed me the Windy card. Zaku looked distraught, ready to run for it if I ever got to write my name on it. “Now sign it!”

I looked at the card in my hands. I wanted to sign it so hard and have Zaku obey my every will, but something was stopping me. “Do you have a pencil?”

Zaku let out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank God! She has nothing to write with!”

“I’m right here!” I hissed and shoved my hands on my hips. “And I do! It’s in my backpack!”

A grin grew on his lips. “Thanks!” And he bolted up the stairs with speed I didn’t know belonged to him and he was gone, leaving me in his dust.

I growled. “You jerk!” And followed him upstairs, going straight to my room. I found him rummaging in my bag, searching desperately. I tapped my foot impatiently. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Stopping you from signing my card!” He pulled something out of my bag and held it up above his head in victory. It was my pencil case. “Aha!”

“No!” I tackled him to the ground, reaching to grab the little bag back. “It’s mine!”

“Give me the card, and you can get this back!”

“Never!”

“Then eat wind, sucker!” He put his free and on my stomach and blew me away with another of his wind blasts. I flew back and collided with the closet door, it somehow strong enough to not snap in two with the force of my collision. My staff clattered on the ground, useless, and I held my stomach forcing down the urge to throw up. Zaku stood over me and cackled at me weakened state. “My card for your pencil case! Or I keep hurting you!”

“Never!” I repeated, throwing my fist right into his sun that doesn’t shine. He gasped and crippled to the ground, curling on his side into the fatal position as he cradled his special jewels. I snatched my now-free case from his greedy presence and turned my back to him, pulling out a pen instead of a pencil to make sure it stuck.

I started writing my name.

_SA—_

Zaku suddenly came back to life and took his turn to tackle me to the ground. I screamed but refused to give up, keeping my hands above my head as I tried to continue on with my grand task of making this man my bitch.

_—KU—_

The card was snatched from my fingers and I cried out in dismay, trying to reach behind me to get it back. With him sitting on my back was hard though, and I squirmed around, trying to turn over or get free and take him down. He laughed at me, but it soon stopped.

“Wha—it’s not coming off!” I turned my head and spotted him desperately trying to wipe off the ink with the palm of his hands. It was a good thing I saw it coming that he would try to get it off. I spotted my wand against the closet door and grabbed it back into my hands, swinging it behind me and smacking Zaku in the face. He cried out in pain and backed up, letting me free. I tucked in my legs so that I could quickly push myself up to my feet and used my foot to kick him in the stomach. Payback!

“That hurt, bitch!” He growled at me, glaring daggers. Good thing I was immune to looks like that. I took the card back and leapt on my bed, staying safely back as I returned to writing my name.

“Now you know how it feels!” I threw back before writing down the two missing letters.

_—RA!_

A flash of gold appeared around his neck and hands, like chains restraining him before they vanished. It must’ve been a show to prove that he was now indeed under my power. Good job, imagination, I really liked that. It made me feel really superior.

Naruto had watched the entire fight from the door, a hand to his tiny forehead as if I were a disgrace to everything magic. I probably was. “That’s _not_ how you—oh, you know what? It’s good enough.” He sighed and flew over, dragging the Clow Book with him. He dropped it on my desk and curled down next to it. “To issue an order, you just need to say his _true_ name.”

True name? Wasn’t his name Zaku?

“Zaku Abumi, I order you to sit!”

Nothing happened. Another of his mocking smirks appeared on his face. “Ha! You can’t do it!”

“Windy!” I growled, trying again.

His face fell. “Shit!”

“KNEEL!”

And that’s how I, Sakura Haruno, became a slave driver—er, I mean pimp—I MEAN A CARDCAPTOR.

 


	2. Fly

I was standing on the giant Penguin slide. Above me was a giant white creature, hovering dangerously close to my head. I reached up to grab its leg and climb on, wondering if it were waiting for me, but it dived down before I could touch it. It flew into the sand, sending it askew as it dragged along the ground. Balls of white flew from its open mouth and detonated in the ground, creating holes that matched the one it created himself.

The King Penguin I stood on was untouched.

Figures of black surrounded us.

There was a flash of yellow and red.

I blinked and, as if a hazy veil has been lifted, I could see a person on the creature’s back.

He was holding his arm, face contorted with pain.

Blood was gushing through his fingers.

He looked up, eyes locking with mine. They were filled with an expression I couldn’t fathom.

“Sakura.”

I felt a tug at my consciousness.

The black figures jumped back and vanished into the night.

“Sakura.”

My eyes flew shut.

I heard slamming on wood.

“Sakura!” My eyes snapped open again. I was in my room, and I was pretty sure Kiba was at my door. “Wake up!”

“I’m up!” I yelled back, pulling back the covers and jumping from my bed. My feet caught on Zaku, who was safely snoring at the feet of my bed, and I toppled to the ground with a yelp.

“Klutz!” Kiba had apparently heard me fall. He left without another word, and I could hear the sound of people waking up and footsteps frolicking around the hallway as my father joined my brother as they went through their daily business. I pulled myself back to my feet, pushed Zaku to the ground in revenge, and rummaged through my closet for my uniform. I found it, threw a blanket over Zaku to make sure he wasn’t looking, and changed as fast as I could. I pulled on the transforming key wand (it was a necklace now for some reason) and hid it under my shirt, then put the Clow Book in my bag (Naruto kept telling me I need to bring the cards with me wherever I went, so I’m bringing the book just in case), and rushed downstairs for breakfast. Good thing for me, Naruto was still sleeping soundly in my plush toy collection.

“Could you be any louder? You’re such a monster!” There was Kiba’s greeting, and then Akamaru barked to me at his feet.

“I’m not a monster!” I hissed, draping my bag on my chair as I sat down at the table. There was a plate of breakfast already waiting for me already, and I could spot Jiraya making more in the kitchen. This was still really odd to me.

“I’m lucky, not everyone can say they have a monster for a sister.”

“Excuse you!” I kicked him in the shins from under the table. He snorted in his coffee and coughed hysterically afterwards. I sat up straighter and prouder at my accomplishment, though it was just getting my brother to choke on his coffee.

“Good morning, Sakura!” Jiraya called from the stove, flipping an omelette. “You’re energetic as usual!”

“Good morning, dad!” I was still not used to calling him dad. I glanced to the side, where my supposed mother’s picture was placed. It was Tsunade, but she had her hair down and draped over her shoulder, her hands placed delicately in her lap as she smiled at the person who took the picture. It was a bit disconcerting to see her looking so delicate, because I knew she was everything but, but she was really like a mother figure to me. I found it fitting to have her picture here, even if she was supposed to be dead in this world. “Good morning, mom!”

“Well I’m off for soccer practice!” Kiba pushed away from the table, pulling his bag with him as he put away his glass. He must’ve already eaten when I came down. “Come on, Akamaru!” The dog barked excitedly and ran after his master as they headed out the front door. I spotted him grabbing his bike and putting Akamaru in the small basket at the front.

“Sakura, you better hurry up or you’re going to be late!” Jiraya stated as he put he finished his meal, placed it in his plate, and joined me at the kitchen table.

I hurried to stuff my face with food before putting away my plate and rushing out.

“Don’t forget about cheerleading!” He called after me. I stiffened, wondering how he knew that I was lying before. “That’s my me time.” And he started giggling to himself, cheeks blushing. I hurried out of there.

I yanked on my rollerblades—why can’t I have a bike like Kiba?—and started on my way to school. I saw the aforementioned older brother in front of me and I hurried to catch up with him. 

“Kiba!”

“Hey squirt!” He leered down at me. “Why the rush?”

“No reason!” I just want you to lead me to school. I barely even know this neighbourhood.

After a few minutes of biking and rollerblading, I looked back up at him. “Kiba, why are we in this world?”

He gave me a confused look. “What?”

“You know, this… place. How do we get back to Konoha?”

His look turned to the same one that Ino gave when I brought up our home, the one where he thought I grew two heads and needed mental help. “Konoha? What’s that?”

“It’s where we live! Or used to live.” I waved my arms around, trying to explain. It wasn’t working well. “You know, that village where we became shinobi together!”

He burst into laughter. “Shinobi? Ha! We aren’t shinobi! You must’ve had some crazy dream!”

“I wasn’t dreaming!”

“Yeah, right!” He scoffed.

I huffed and crossed my arms. I couldn’t wait to return home and talk to Zaku and figure out why the heck everyone’s gone crazy. Damn this school and taking up my time! I needed to figure out this issue, not learn music and manners and gym and things I don’t need!

We passed by Penguin Park. There were large holes scattered around in the sand, nearly missing getting the giant arctic creature in the face. I stiffened. Was this the cause of a Clow Card? Naruto did mention that they could cause destruction… But I didn’t sense anything. Oh yeah, that’s right, my chakra was repressed in this world. Stupid world. I had to rely on stupid Zaku to do jutsus for me. Uggh.

“I wonder what happened…” Kira eyed the place, and Akamaru started barking at the crowded group of people that had stopped to stare at the disaster along with us.

“I don’t know… Looks crazy…” Something was tugging at my mind. It was almost as if I’ve seen this disaster before. But I couldn’t stay to investigate. I had to go to school or I’d be late.

We rushed up the slope and I turned to slide into my school as Kiba kept on going straight for his own one. I hadn’t learned how to stop or slow down yet, so I had to collide into Ino at the lockers in order to do just that. We bickered for a bit before switching into our indoor shoes and heading for the classroom.

“Did you hear what happened?” Ino was still a gossiper, I see.

“What?” I returned.

“I heard some guy went crazy last night and destroyed Penguin Park.” This, I knew, was going to spread like wild fire. “A lot of people heard some crazy laughter and screaming. I don’t really know. Some people say the guy was yelling about art for some reason. Others say he was yelling about finding his group or something and causing a riot.”

Something about what she was saying sounded oddly familiar to my ears. I had to think hard. If it actually were a Clow Card, who did I know that was crazy enough to blow up a random park and yell about art and his groupies? No one specific came to mind, though I felt that it wasn’t the first time that I heard someone behave like that. Ino’s look was somehow affecting my perception as well, since I thought it was a part of the culprit. Was Ino the bomber? No. She only used long distance and mind techniques. But the possibility wasn’t completely crossed out either. This dream world was pretty wild, so who really knows what could happen next.

I stopped thinking about it and concentrated on school. It went as yesterday; English, math, music, Language, and then gym. This time I remembered about cheerleading club afterwards and stayed at school, which bothered me since I wanted to check out Penguin Park as soon as possible. We practiced baton twirling, our jumps, and then collaborated stunts (I soon realized I could use these cheerleading techniques at my advantage for future Clow Card endeavours). After a few hours of hard work, we were sent home and I headed straight for the park instead. When I arrived there, it was surrounded by yellow police tape and filled with policemen and investigators. I looked back at the holes and found them to be pretty deep, even destroying the soil that was underneath the sand. The giant slide was somehow okay, but the rest of the park wasn’t. The kids of the neighbourhood would be really disappointed.

I continued on my way home and successfully arrived without a mix up (though I almost hit the mailbox again). I quickly ran upstairs, ignoring Kiba’s commentary about whatever he was going to mock me about now, and slammed the door open. I closed it behind me and realized that Zaku was nowhere to be found. Naruto was playing video games on my television though.

“Where’d Windy go?” It was fun calling him a name he didn’t like.

Naruto glanced over his shoulder at me, as if he hadn’t just heard me slam the door open, and went back to his game. “When Clow Cards are out of their card form and get too far from their master, they lose energy and power until they’re forced to return into their cards, datTEBAYO!” He pumped a fist over his head as he successfully destroyed his opponent. A new one instantly appeared on the screen and he went back to button mashing. “Windy’s back in his card, so you don’t have to worry about a thing.”

“They live in their cards?”

“Believe it!”

I blinked. This card deal was pretty disorienting. I could now carry these guys everywhere I went. That’s cool, I guess? Wait. That meant I was doing all the labour. They better be grateful, or no ice cream for them!

“Oh yeah,” Naruto piped up, still pretty caught up in his game. He looked way too focused into his game to be even talking to me, but I wasn’t complaining. “Why did you bounce in here in such a hurry?”

“I think I found the next Clow Card!”

As soon as he heard that, he paused his game and flew over. “You serious? You sensed it?”

I looked away, ashamed that my chakra wasn’t working. If it were, I could track down the imposter in ten seconds and make him say uncle in less than that. Damn these useless chakra canals of mine! “Not really. But Penguin Park got freakishly destroyed last night. People are saying that some crazy bomber went there and raved about art or something.”

His ears, which lowered when he realized I hadn’t actually caught a scent, flew up in alert. “Bomber? Art? I think I might know who it is. We’ll go investigate tonight!”

I dropped in a heap on my bed, my adrenaline rush gone now that I knew that I wasn’t going anywhere. “Why not now?”

“Because the bombing happened at night! So he most likely works at night. Nothing else blew up, has there? Besides,” he paused, and then his stomach let out the loudest growl I ever heard from such a tiny creature, “I’m hungry.”

“Of course you are…” I couldn’t help but laugh. He may be a tiny fox and not remember a thing about Konoha, but he was still Naruto. “I’ll go get you some ramen!”

He beamed at me, rolling on his feet in excitement as his tail—tails?—swished in excitement. “How’d you know-ttebayo?”

“I’m a mind reader!” I giggled, vanishing from my door with a whoosh.

I rushed downstairs, but then froze when I realized that I wasn’t alone in the house. Kiba was curled up on the couch with Akamaru, watching television. I slowed my steps and crept by, trying not to alert him as I went. I didn’t want him to wonder why I was getting food so soon when supper would be on the way. That, and I didn’t want him to make another comment on me being a monster.

“I know you’re there!” Kiba snickered as if I was stupid to even try. “Don’t bother trying to be sneaky, you walk like a monster!”

I smacked the back of his head lightly, not wanting it to hurt. Though none of my punches actually hurt lately, so I guess I could spare to use some more force. “I’m not a monster!”

“Whoa, quiet down! Don’t want the entire neighbourhood to call animal control!”

“S-shut up!” I hissed, this time hitting him harder. He wasn’t even fazed. I opened the nearest cupboard and, just my luck, instant ramen was staring at me right in the face. I snatched it, made a cup of boiling water, and ran back upstairs.

“Hey, quiet down there, monster! You’re going to scare the neighbours!”

“Shut your front door!” Stupid comeback, I know, but I wasn’t good at this. I never had a brother to bicker with, so this was new to me.

As soon as I was back in my room, I placed the items on the desk and opened a part of the instant ramen package so that I could pour the hot water in it. I closed it back and put the chopsticks over the peal-able opening so that the heat stayed inside. I watched the clock to make sure three minutes passed before I could let Naruto eat it. I could see him drool as he continued to play his video game to keep himself distracted.

Three minutes passed, and he devoured the food like it was nothing. He was soon demanding for more. I brought back two more packages, and he downed them in another instant. Although I knew he was still hungry, I stopped him from having more. If I let him have more, he would get spoiled! And he’d clean our house clean of food! Assuming I’d let it go that far, I mean.

“There’s something I don’t understand.” Naruto suddenly said between bites as I worked on homework. When I told him that he was at his last bowl, he took his time eating it to savour the taste.

I spun in my desk chair and looked at him questionably. He was eating on a table apron I set up on my bed until I figured out a comfy way for him to settle in my room. “What is it?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s the Fly Card that destroyed that park—” I nodded, even though I didn’t understand how he could think that a card that flies had anything to do with stuff blowing up, “—but what I don’t understand is why it was just the park. The Fly card wouldn’t do something so small. He would try to blow up the entire city.” He put a paw to his chin, and it was weird seeing such a human action from a fox. “Something’s not right.”

“Maybe it’s not the Fly card?” That kind of card didn’t seem to match our situation.

“The only other one would be the Erase card—” That one seemed more relevant. “—it does sound more like him, but he wouldn’t talk about art. He would rather yell at everyone and try to sacrifice everything. Heck, that Penguin slide would’ve been one of his first victims.”

I sighed in frustration. I knew nothing about these Clow Cards, yet I was expected to catch them. Though it did help that the first one was a shinobi from home, it wouldn’t guarantee the others would also be the same. I felt like I was walking naked into a battle field. I had no idea how to fight with Zaku, and catching another one just seemed worse than the small brawl with _Windy_ in my room. I did know that the person was a bomber, but that didn’t necessarily mean that it was a Clow Card. Heck, I didn’t even know what a Clow Card _was_.

“Hey, Naruto, what’s a Clow Card?”

He stopped slurping in the noodles in his little mouth in the most disgusting way possible and looked at me like I was stupid. “It’s a Clow Card.”

“Gee thanks.”

“No problem, dattebayo!” As if the conversation was dropped, he went right back to his meal and ignored the world around him.

I sighed to myself and went back to doing my homework. Soon enough, I was called down for supper, which Jiraya made, and I ate with my pretend family. We chatted and I tried to send innuendoes about the real world, but they were having none of it. We talked about sports and school and anything that was on our minds (except for me) until we got tired. It was a nice feeling to have, being close with a family. My own was too busy for me, so the only time they _would_ notice was if I either misbehaved or did really well in school. I preferred to do the later, and it paid off in the long run. I had become Tsunade’s apprentice and everyone I knew were hoping I’d reach my dream of being a doctor. Of course, being a shinobi came first, but being a healer at the same time greatly helped, especially when I got to punch a few heads in. You could imagine my frustration when I could practically do nothing in this magic-oriented world. I started to really wonder if I was actually in a dream or not.

Then I remembered Naruto and grabbed my pudding from the fridge, a treat for him, and returned to my room. When I opened the door, I found the bowls of ramen licked clean, my bag knocked over so that its contents was spilled, and Naruto sitting on the Clow Book, meditating on my desk. I groaned, put the dessert next to Naruto—who snapped out of his trance and immediately jumped into it—and started cleaning the mess he made.

“What were you doing?” I asked once all my books were gathered in my bag once again.

Naruto swallowed his mouthful of pudding before answering, swinging the spoon in his hands around. “I was trying to sense the Clow Card, but I don’t have enough power to do that. There are too many cards missing.” This wasn’t a jab at me, though I did feel it hit somewhere in the back of my mind.  I tried to ignore the guilt. It was also hard to hear Naruto say he didn’t have power. It seemed that that was the only thing he had. That, and a bunch of perverted jutsus and clones. It was different seeing the dude finally having limits.

“Let’s not dwell on it.” I dropped myself on my bed and looked up at the ceiling, a feeling of anticipation and dread growing. It was almost as if I could tell that the Clow Card was coming soon, and that alone was making me antsy. “When do you want to head out and investigate Penguin park?”

As soon as those words left my lips, I heard a loud crash coming from outdoors, followed by debris falling against my window. The room shook with the power of the small explosion, and I jumped up and rushed to my window to figure out what happened, although I’m pretty sure I already knew. Naruto was hot on my tail, and we glued our faces to the window to look out. There was a large hole right in the middle of the pedestrian road, the road itself demolished and upturned at the spot, dirt everywhere, similar to what happened to Penguin Park.

“Sakura, look!” I followed the direction his paw was pointing at and found myself staring into a large white blob of a thing. There was someone dressed in black sitting in it, and that combination made me feel like I was experiencing déjà-vu. “That’s the Fly card!”

“What _is_ that?” I pushed open my window and stuck my head out, trying to see it better.

“No, don’t!”

The blob turned in our direction instantaneously, the person who was on it looking just like Ino, but somehow not at the same time. He was wearing a wicked grin, a black and red cloak that I knew too well, and his creation, now that I could see its face and not its giant butt, was a dragon.

“I found you, yeah!” He pointed straight at me, and I bristled. Something about him wanting to find me didn’t sit well. Sure, he was a Clow Card here, but he was also a missing nin and a really dangerous one at that, having blown up multiple buildings from his own home village. His name escaped me, since I only heard of him (and the Akatsuki, if I could assume by his cloak) when I peeked a look into the bingo book that Tsunade kept saying I wasn’t ready to read yet.

“You found me!” I yelled back to him, my voice probably not reaching too far. “Now stop trying to blow up this city!”

“On one condition!” He replied, flying lower so that he was only a few meters away from my window. His blue eyes locked with mine and I felt a chill crawl down my skin. “I get to kill you!”

I looked at Naruto, who was shaking his head at me not to agree, eyes wide. I looked back at my room door, making sure I wasn’t going to be interrupted, before turning back to the missing nin. I felt my Clow Key pressing against my collarbone and the presence of the Windy card against my hip from my pockets in my skirt. It was a soothing reminder that I wasn’t alone and that I was able to defend myself (and kick major butt).

“Fine!” I outstretched my arm out the window, beckoning him closer. “But not here!”

“Sakura!” Naruto warned me, but I ignored him.

“Fine, yeah!” He walked from the neck of the creature to its head, crouching down so he could wrap his hand around my wrist. I felt something wet against my skin, tasting and searching, and I yanked my arm back in surprise.

“What was _that_?!” I screeched, examining my violated skin and wondering if this was some sort of trick to poison or drug me.

The man laughed and held up his hand defensively. I squinted at it and noticed the small mouth in the palm of his hand, a little tongue peeking out and wiggling at me, and I started to feel sick. I held a hand to my heart and stuck my arm back out, closing my eyes as I waited for the criminal to grab onto me again. I wasn’t backing out. I-I was just really creeped out.

“No Sakura!” Naruto jumped on my arm and forced it back to my side. “You can’t go kill yourself! You’re a Cardcaptor!”

“And that’s why you should trust me!” I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and tossed him behind me, pulling my upper body through the window as I propped up a leg on the window sill. There was a long way down, but I knew the blond man would take my hand.

I reached out for him. He was sitting crossed leg on the dragon’s head, his face impatiently waiting on his fist as he regarded us with utmost boredom. “You know what?” He got up, but instead of coming towards me, he backed up and returned to the dragon’s neck and sat back down. “You took too long, Miss Cardcaptor!” He taunted, almost a hysteric cry to the sky. I could tell that his reason wasn’t because I had been slowed down by Naruto. It felt more as if hearing that I was the Cardcaptor from Naruto made him change his mind. “Deals off! This city’s going to hell!”

“Oh thank goodness…” Naruto sighed behind me.

I sent him a sharp look.

He gulped. “I didn’t want you to die!”

“And I was going to take him down on his bird!” I yelled back, jumping down from the window. I rolled as I landed, to lessen the shock and pain it would bring, and pulled out the Clow Key. I chanted the spell Naruto whispered into my ear, “Release!” and the staff grew in my hand.

I looked up, ready to face my opponent, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Where’d he go?”

“Over there, dattebayo!” Naruto, who was hovering next to me, pointed into the sky, where you could distinctively spot a large white dot flying away.

“He’s moving too fast!” I noted, worry growing in my throat. I was the only one that could catch it, and yet here I was letting him destroy the city! “How am I supposed to catch up?” I nearly slapped myself in the face. “Of course!” I quickly snuck back into my room, slipped downstairs for my rollerblades, and then snuck back outside, pulling them on. Naruto had chosen to wait outside and keep an eye on the mad bomber, and he became my GPS of sorts.

“Turn left! No right! How is that a turn? Are you kidding me? Straight! Deer! You almost hit it! Geez! Right! Right again! No, wait, left!”

Never mind, Naruto was a horrid GPS.

 I slammed into a random pole to stop myself once I saw us nearing the Fly card. Once I was sure I was steady on my feet again, I caught my breath and waited for a while, getting my energy back as I panted. Naruto started yelling at me to move, and I was glad he did, or I wouldn’t have followed his advice, and three seconds later, I would’ve been hit by an exploding ball.

“How do you like my mines?” Fly cackled. “A _blast_ , isn’t it?”

“You have to get him away from the city!” Naruto hissed in my ear. “He’ll destroy everything with those!”

“But where?” A flash of blue and white and gold flashed in my mind and I gasped, my dream slowly coming back to me. Penguin Park was the key! “I know!”

I skated closer to the giant dragon, nearly under him. The man riding it looked down at me, in his hand a little detonator that he was ready to drop on my head at any second. He raised an eyebrow and eyed me, waiting for my next move before bringing forth my demise.

“Hey!” I called, moving my hands to cup my mouth. “Your dragon sucks!” His eyebrows twitched madly. “So does art!” His face contorted with anger. “No wonder your group left you!”

That was the last straw.

He snapped.

He started uncontrollably throwing insults and swears and bombs, turning his dragon along so that it would swoop down and try to eat me. I moved swiftly on my feet, diving and speeding up when needed, making my way back to the roads I knew (I didn’t trust Naruto’s bad GPS skills). I didn’t stop, knowing that if I did, I would get caught, and zigzagged through the city to reach the Penguin Park that was near my home. I managed to get pretty far, and it was safe to say that most of the city hadn’t gotten bombed because it was chasing me. I turned to look over my shoulder, when I was finally at the edge of the park, and I spotted Fly just as he dove for me. I swerved left, but got hit with the dragon’s wing as I wasn’t fast enough to dodge it completely. I flew a couple of feet before colliding with the ground, rolling in the sand afterwards as I landed inside the park, the yellow police tape that was supposed to stop us ruined.

“I finally caught you.” Fly jumped off the dragon and made his way over. I pushed myself to a sitting position and stuck my wand out between us as a warning. Sand stuck to my skin and hair, and it tried to choke me as I moved. The missing nin scoffed at me. “Don’t be stupid. You can’t really use magic, yeah.”

“I can so!” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the Windy card, jumping to my feet when I realized that he wasn’t advancing past my staff. Something about it must be bothering him.

He looked mildly surprised. “You already caught a card?”

I smirked as an answer, and tossed the card in the air, hitting it with the tip of the beak of my wand to activate it. “Become a chain and tie him down—Windy!”

“Shit!” He swerved on his feet and sprinted for the protection of his dragon.

Beneath my feet, a magic circle appeared and the wind and force I knew that came with the using staff swirled around me. The sand picked up from the ground and my clothes was forced in every direction as I was swept clean of sand on my body. Tendrils of thick pressurized wind was expelled from the card and melded together, materializing into a familiar form in front of me. It accumulated until it was large tidal wave of strong white wind flying towards the Fly card, ready to attack although his body was still forming. I spotted Zaku’s face as it was created, the sparkling blue wings on his forehead mesmerizing, but his sharp squinty eyes ruining his majestic image. As Windy neared the man, faster than ever in his wind form, Zaku’s newly formed arms were held tighter at his sides and he let out a strong blast of wind, extending his reach further than I could imagine, speed increasing.

Zaku tilted his body to the side, angling in order to surround the Fly card. The missing nin wasn’t stupid though, and saw it coming. He dove at the very last second, sliding underneath Windy as the other failed to wrap himself around him. Fly was quickly back on his feet and running, and Windy whirled in a circle in order to follow him, but that was really his only chance and he missed it. Fly jumped on his giant dragon and instantly returned into the air, circling dangerously above our heads, now with the advantage.

Zaku returned to the ground and the rest of his body solidified. The white that his body used to be faded into his typical shinobi outfit and the blue wings was covered by his forehead protector, and soon his metal plates returned as well on his cheeks. He turned to me,the expression that I expected to be filled with hate was rather serious instead. “What now?”

I ran over to him, bubbling with excitement. I was still wearing my skates, but the sand didn’t mesh well with them, so I was forced to run instead of gliding, which was hard since they were heavy. “How did you do that? Your entire body became wind!”

His eyebrow twitched. “Only the four elemental cards can turn into their element—” His eyes slid up and they widened (as much as those beady little eyes could, I mean). “—watch out!” He reached out with one arm and pulled himself in front of me, throwing up his other one in the air, releasing another blast of wind. I watched with wide eyes, jaw ready to drop, as the incoming mine ball got deflected and flew back towards the dragon. Fly swore and swerved away, but it still exploded near him, and his dragon got hit in the wing.

He came diving down into an already-created hole in the sand, an echo of my dream.

I ran to him, but Zaku was faster. He dove towards Fly, hands and palms pulled back and at the ready for another one of his attacks. I could tell from his expression that he wanted more than just to bind the other card like I ordered him to, and I realized I had to stop him before he hurt the Fly further.

“Windy, SIT!”

Zaku froze mid-pounce and was sent sprawling into the sand at the force of my command.

I held out his card, “Return!” and he growled, returning to his billowing windy form as he lifted from the ground, hitting the card and forcing himself back in. As soon I was sure he was safe in his card, I pocketed it and neared Fly.

He was watching me with wary eyes, one hand working slowly at the wound—as much as a hole and melted section actually looked like a wound—on his dragon’s wing. I put my staff behind my back and held out my other hand. “Show me your arm.”

He bristled, his eyes widening in surprise but then narrowing suspiciously. He didn’t speak, however, which is one of the things I wanted from him.

“I know you’re hurt.”

He looked away. “Am not, yeah.”

“Yes you are.” I stepped closer. He didn’t move away, which was a good sign. “You’ve only been using that one arm for everything, and I’m pretty sure you need the other to fix that dragon of yours.”

I realized with a start that he was sulking. A smile threatened to break onto my lips.

I took another step. “I can heal you.”

His voice was hoarse. “You can’t, yeah.”

I tried not to let it affect me that I realized that he too knew that my chakra was suppressed. I wondered if he somehow knew of me in advance, that I was kunoichi with great chakra control and healing abilities. But no, he was probably being stubborn and refusing help. He couldn’t have known about me.

Naruto swooped out of nowhere, panting hard (he probably hid for safety and then came flying, since he’s really tiny and has no power in him, his words not mine) and landed on my shoulder. “She’s right you know.”

“Naruto!” I hissed in warning, since he could’ve scared the other man away.

“It’s true!” He replied, crossing his tiny fox arms and jumping off my shoulder. He hovered closer towards the Fly. “If you return to your card form, you’ll be healed.”

Fly turned his back to us.

“You know it’s true!” Naruto cried, trying to get to him.

No answer.

“Come on, Fly. We’ll take good care of you.”

Still nothing. I distinctively heard him grumble though.

“If you stay in this form, you won’t be able to fix your arm. Or that dragon’s wing.” Naruto crossed his arms. “You’re a runaway Clow Card. Only those with magic, like Sakura, can help you.”

He was shaking his head, probably still trying to deny it.

“Please.” I pleaded in turn. “I want to help you. I don’t bite. I swear I won’t hurt you!”

“…yeah.” He finally breathed in reply.

Naruto and I shared ecstatic glances.

Fly turned to me, and I had been right. He was sulking, but he was totally cute that way. His cheeks were puffed up and red from anger (and probably from broken pride as well) but his eyes were pleading me to help. I glanced down at the arm that my dream told me was in pain, and saw blood dripping from the large sleeve hiding it.

My eyebrows shot up. “We need to hurry!”

Fly’s shoulders lifted in defence. “This doesn’t mean that you’ve won!”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and instead smiled sweetly. “Of course.”

Naruto returned to my shoulder and I brought back my staff in front of me. He whispered the sealing words and I repeated them, bringing up the staff and then back down as the magic circle reappeared below my feet. Fly closed his eyes and lowered his shoulders, accepting his return to a card. Like Windy had, he and his dragon next to him turned into tendrils of energy that hit the tip of my staff, forming the card itself and getting sucked in. Once the card finished creating itself, it flew up in the air with its own energy, fluttering towards me. I held out a hand hesitantly and it slid into my waiting palm.

On the lower section of the card was the giant dragon that the missing nin had ridden, wings tucked in and face lowered. Semi-sitting on it was the blond Akatsuki shinobi, one leg propped up, an arm on the dragon’s head and the other one behind him as if he were riding it dangerously. His outfit was completely white, but I had a feeling that was just the card’s style. Windy’s card was also the same pasty white.

“How did you know, Sakura?” Naruto asked me as we headed back. I kept the Fly card in my hands, admiring and wondering about his name that was on the tip of my tongue. The staff returned to its key form, and I slid it around my neck, proud of my first real capture.

“It was in my dream.” I beamed at him. “He was with other people, but then he fell and got hurt, and then they all left him there.”

Naruto nodded but grinned up at me, bright blue eyes shining with excitement. “That was a prophetic dream!” He flew around my head. “Your magic power is already growing so fast!”

“Prophetic dream?” I repeated, looking up at him for clarification as he danced with himself.

“Yeah!” He flew down in front of my face, and I stopped walking in order not to slam into him. He walked on the air on all fours, strutting his stuff, tails flicking around. “It just means you have dreams that can either show you the future or the past!” He nodded to himself and then lifted one of his paws to point at me. “Only people with magic can do that, so you should be proud!”

I didn’t really _feel_ like I had magic in me, but I must’ve if Naruto recognized it. “Thanks?”

He started hovering towards the road again, to go back home, and I was ready to follow after him. I didn’t even take a step when whirled back to me. “I have an idea!”

I blinked in surprise. He was really unpredictable, just like the Naruto I knew. “What is it?”

“Call out Fly!”

“But he’s hurt!”

“He’s in his card, so he’s been healed. Don’t worry about it. Trust me!”

“Fine.” I grumbled, pulling out my key to summon the wand form again. I pulled out Fly’s card, watched it as if it could tell me what it secretly wanted in life, and then hit it lightly with the tip of my wand. “Fly!”

In a whirl of energy and magic, Fly appeared in front of me, kneeling, with one arm on his knee and his head bowed. I shared a surprised look with Naruto, but he looked as if bowing upon arrival was a normal thing.

“What’s your name?” I asked Fly, since it was the first thing on my mind.

“Deidara.” He muttered, rising his head to look at me, and my mind instantly felt relief. That’s right! That was his name! I had to work on my memory. I looked into Deidara’s eyes and noted gladly that there wasn’t any hate there, and I could even swear that I saw respect. He quickly put up a shield around himself though, when he realized it, and made himself distant from us. He soon stood up to match my height, though he was obviously taller, since I’m about ten years old and he’s probably in his late teens.

I put my hands behind my back, moving my wand there as well. I was doing that so that I didn’t look threatening or suspicious. “Is your arm better?”

He blinked in surprise, looked down at his supposed-to-be hurt arm, moved it around, and then looked back up at me, nodding mutely.

I smiled, relieved. “Thank goodness.” I glanced at Naruto. “I would’ve been angry if you were lying.”

Naruto huffed and puffed up his chest proudly. “I may be many things, but I’m _not_ a liar, dattebayo!”

“Mhmm…” I hummed teasingly, narrowing my eyes at him with a smile.

“What is it, yeah?” Deidara interrupted. “What do you need me for?”

I turned to Naruto, since he was technically the one who told me to call him out. I didn’t know what Naruto wanted me to do with the Fly, so I had to leave it to him to explain.

The little fox grinned and flew over to Deidara, landing on his shoulder and whispering something in his ear. At first, the shinobi’s face scrunched up as he took in the information, but then his expression lightened and he nodded to Naruto, turning to me afterwards. He moved in my direction and I regarded him warily, but still trusting. He couldn’t hurt me, not while I held this staff and had his card. He wouldn’t dare lay a hand on me. Besides, I was sure he was just doing what Naruto was demanding of him, so whatever he was going to do couldn’t be bad.

He wrapped his arm around me. I stiffened, breath caught in my throat. I felt his hands over mine on the staff, and we were so close I swore I could feel his heat rolling off his body and hear his heart beat.

“Don’t move while I do this, hm.” He whispered in my ear before closing his eyes. I watched as he returned to his form of tendrils of energy, flowing around me. I slowly tilted my head back, not to ruin his concentration, and followed his body’s flow. My eyes widened as he reformed himself at the head of my staff, into two large white wings. When he was no longer in front of me, and had fully created the wings, flapping slightly, I held my staff in front of me.

“Is this—” I began to ask in awe.

Naruto twirled around my staff in excitement. “Believe it! You can now fly on your staff, dattebayo!”

“Like a real witch!” I blurted out for no reason.

Naruto nodded and hopped around me, urging me to hurry up and fly in the sky.

I set the staff horizontal to the ground and settled myself comfortably on the center of it, so that I had enough space to hold the end with my hands. Naruto flew over and sat in front of me, on the very end, and gave me the cutest little thumb up to state he was good and ready.

I nodded and, since I didn’t know how to begin, I called to the card. “Fly!”

Power was added to the beat of the wings and soon we were lifting off the ground. I locked the ankles of my rollerblades together, just in case I would fall, and held on tighter. With another burst of energy, we were swerving in the sky, reaching higher and greater reach than I could imagine.

It was so high that I felt I could reach the stars in the darkening skies, the sunset painting the clouds a colourful pink and purple. I laughed, hearty but a bit anxious, and I felt grateful that my mental state wasn’t also at ten years old along my body, or I would’ve been so scared.

I tested the motor skills and did a few tricks when I was used to it.

If becoming the Cardcaptor and catching cards that could help me cheat life was this much fun afterwards, then I wouldn’t have had it another way.


	3. Shadow

When I awoke and sat up, I saw that there were not one but _two_ bodies with me. Zaku had his feet under a section of my pillow, his head at the end of my bed with his back to us, a blanket barely covering his waist. Deidara was sleeping on my other side, arms and legs spread and wildly in every direction that seems comfortable (one of his legs had even been over mine), and yet still managing to hog all the blankets. Thankfully (or actually, maybe not) they still had their clothes on.

I rubbed my eyes, yawned, and pushed Zaku to the floor so that I could get up. He was sleeping so soundly that he barely even shifted once he landed face first. I fisted my knuckles, seething internally at the predicament. Since when did I give these guys permission to sleep in my bed? Sure, I let them out of their cards, assuming they could go back whenever they felt like it, but that did _not_ allow them to take advantage of my sleeping form to hog my bed. It was _my_ bed for a reason. If they stupidly chose to wake up right now, they were going to face hell.

After triple checking to make sure the two were really asleep and weren’t going to suddenly wake up and watch me, I switched into my school uniform.

Which, of course, I somehow got commented on.

“Trying to seduce me already, yeah?” Deidara yawned, propping himself on his elbows and smirking at me.

I slowly turned my head in his direction, expression frozen on scary friendliness, reaching for my hairbrush as a weapon. “Is that what you really think?”

I could tell he was considering shutting up and apologizing, but his big mouth wouldn’t let him. “Well yeah, you were changing in front of me, hmm.” The innuendo he added with his tone of voice did not help his situation either.

“That’s it!” I chucked my hairbrush at him, and it got him right in the forehead, since he was still a bit sleepy from waking up. I grabbed and threw anything else I could get my hands on, and he was left with using his pile of blankets as a shield, spluttering in surprise.

He looked pretty incredulous that I managed to ruin my room in about less than a minute. “What’s your problem, yeah?”

“My problem?” I cracked my knuckles, even if I knew it was bad for my fingers, making sure he could clearly hear it. “I wake up with two guys in my bed—without my consent!—and I’m the one with the problem?” I inched closer, and he backed away, probably wondering what happened to yesterday’s good mood. His hands clutched the blankets tighter, probably ready to use it to shield himself again.

“Breakfast is ready!” Kiba called from downstairs.

“Coming!” I switched back to my original sweetness, though I sent Deidara a warning look, to which he stiffened at. I snatched my rolling hairbrush from my bed and ran it through my hair. “Don’t. Touch. Anything.” I threw over my shoulder at the door before bolting down the stairs.

“She’s crazy in the morning, yeah.” I heard him sigh in relief behind me, since he managed to escape my wrath due to my brother’s bad timing.

“Good morning!” I greeted as I arrived in the dining room. Kiba was in the kitchen, at the stove, and cooking. I took a double take, not really sure if I was still dreaming or not. “You’re making breakfast?”

He stuck out his tongue at me. “At least _I_ can cook.”

I stomped my foot. “S-shut up! I _can_ cook!” But I still slid into my seat at the table and waited patiently for him to bring me food. As soon as I received said form of healthy nutrition, I practically gulped it down and choked as I stuffed myself to the brim. “Better than I expected!” I wheezed as I hit my chest to allow better passage for the pancakes down my oesophagus.

“Thanks, squirt!” Kiba puffed up proudly, but then paused. “If that’s your _real_ name!”

I gasped, putting a hand up to my mouth and playing along. “Oh no! How did you figure out I’m not the real Sakura?”

“You put on your shirt backwards!” He cackled.

I was about to retort and keep going with our improvisation, but then looked down at myself and realized that he wasn’t lying—my shirt was indeed backwards. “Ah! No way!”

I smacked the laughing Kiba as I went to put away my plate before running back to my room. I was not ready for what was waiting for me there.

“Hey!” Deidara pointed at me as soon as I slammed the door behind me. “You let this guy sleep with you yesterday!” He pointed his thumb accusingly in Zaku’s direction, who was surprisingly awake and groggy.

“Because I didn’t know he could return to his card!” I retorted as I tucked my arms inside my shirt and turned it around expertly without showing skin to the two perverts.

Zaku was snickering. “Face it, Deidei—”

“Don’t call me Deidei!”

He rolled his eyes at the blond. “—she likes me more!” He had the audacity to look smug about that, when yesterday it was so obvious that he hated me to the core. He was just saying that to rile up his new card neighbour.

“Yeaaaah… no.” I decided they weren’t worth the effort and snatched my backpack from my desk chair, grabbing the two cards afterwards and pointing them at the guys. “I hate you two equally. Now return!” Zaku groaned and Deidara tsked but they soon converted to energy and returned to the inside of their cards where they belonged. Once I was sure I had everything in my bag, I flew downstairs, pulled on my skates, and was off to school.

“What’s the rush, squirt?” Kiba snickered as Akamaru barked from the little basket on his bike, just as I reached him.

I pouted. “What, I’m not allowed to hang out with my brother in the morning?”

He smirked and gave me a look.

I grinned back. “Morning duty.”

“Of course.” He rolled his eyes at me, but I knew he had no problem with it.

“Sakura! Kiba!” Ino was waving at us from the end of the road, where I usually rushed up a ramp to short cut past Penguin Park. We skidded to a stop next to her, and she decided to take that moment to flirt with my brother and ignore me. I rolled my eyes and purposely shoved her so that’d she pay attention to me, then told them to get a room and left them alone for their privacy.

Ino hurriedly detached herself from Kiba though (who whined just like Akamaru does when he doesn’t get table food), and came running after me. “Wait up! I have to talk to you about something!”

“Sure, I guess.” I lifted an eyebrow at her, since it was a first that she chose me over her boyfriend (uggh) of all things. “What’s up?”

“I want to show you something I saw yesterday night.” She pulled her backpack off her shoulder and started searching through it. After running up the ramp, I slowed my pace to adjust to her slow walking, and Kiba sped past us with an evil laugh that bordered crazy, with Akamaru howling in excitement. After a few more seconds of halting and sticking our tongues out at my brother, she pulled out a small camera from her bag. “Here we are!”

I furrowed my brow and blinked a few times, trying to figure out what was so important to talk to me so early in the morning. Couldn’t she have waited until we had morning duty together in class to show me this? What’s with that? “You filmed something?”

“Yeah!” She turned on her little handheld device and pressed a few buttons. The screen lit up and animated itself, and I watched as the camera focused on the balcony of her house. It lifted to look up in the sky, and there was a dot annoyingly hovering in front of yesterday night’s bright moon.

I gulped. This had better not be what I think it is.

“Look at what happens when I do this—” she fondled with the zoom and it went into the moon. After a few seconds, it focused on the person and I blanched. There I was, in casual clothes, in my skates, and flying on my staff that grew wings.

Ino was smirking at me.

“It’s not what it looks like!” I quickly told her before she assumed it was me.  Well, it _was_ me but I didn’t want her to know that.

She narrowed her eyes further, that I-know-your-secret smile still there. “What is it _supposed_ to look like?”

“Nothing…” I looked away and pushed on the ground so that my skates went faster.

“What are you hiding?” She yelled after me, trying to run as she struggled to keep up with my longer and faster strides. “Tell me, Sakura!”

“You’ll never take us alive!” The tiny fox face that was Naruto stuck out of my bag, screaming at Ino, who jolted in surprise.

“Naruto!” I screeched back at him. “What are you doing here? You’re making it worse!”

“I’m helping you!” He chirped back, unaffected by my screaming.

“This is not helping!” I returned, but pushed my feet even faster, as if I was being chased, as if I needed to escape Ino. My mind was screaming at me though. Why _wasn’t_ I telling her? She was one of my closest friends in Konoha, and here too, but then why? Was it because she couldn’t remember anything, making her almost like a stranger to me? That must be it, because it was the only thing I could think of for my reasoning.

I hesitated at my shoe locker, not sure if I should go ahead or not, if I should wait for Ino. After pondering my choices, I decided it was better to talk about it in class as we did our morning duties, where no one could catch us in the hall. I was going to tell her, I decided. It might help bring her memories too.

I reached the door to the class when Ino came running at me. “Sakura!” she wheezed, “Spill the beans!”

I opened the door to the classroom and motioned her to go in. “Fine, but not out here.”

She nodded, then took a few steps and made her way inside. A surprised shrieked escaped her a few seconds later. Naruto came flying out of my bag just as I rushed in the classroom behind her, looking wildly about. When I noticed what she was staring at, my eyes went wide. I stared at the pile of desks set up in a completely different pattern than usual. They were set up strictly in rows, few linking between them.

They spelled out one word.

_HELP_.

“Who would do this?” Ino went on, making motions at the desks and letting everyone in the building know that there was something wrong with our class.

“I sense a Clow Card, dattebayo!” Naruto whispered in my ear, all seriousness present. I nodded in agreement, since something like this wouldn’t have been done as a prank or a joke. Who would be asking for help though? Another ninja I knew somehow?

“A… Clow Card?” Ino turned to us, and Naruto quickly landed on my shoulder as if he wasn’t just flying there. She narrowed her eyes at us, having heard us. “A _card_ did this? Are you crazy?”

“Guys!” Tenten burst in the room, wearing the same uniform as us and looking like the younger eleven year old version of herself from the Chunnin Exams. “Did you hear?”

“Tenten?” I gaped at her, surprised that she was here. She must be in another class but stuck here like Ino and I was. Morning duty totally rocks some socks, yeah. (Oh no, Deidei’s rubbing off on me!) “What’s going on?”

Her eyes landed on Naruto though. “Aww! What a cute plush toy!”

Ino snapped her hands in the girl’s face. “Tenny, what should have we heard?”

She shook her head and righted herself. “Oh, right!” She turned away and waved at us to follow.   
“It’s better if you come see it for yourself!”

We trailed her to the back of the school to the track field, where we usually had our gym classes. Around it were a group of students buzzing and trying to see something. It was hard to see for ourselves what all the talk was about, so we took turns pushing through the crowd until we were at the front. I realized I shouldn’t have done that though, because there was another batch of desks there, this time set up in a wild pattern.

“What is this?” Ino yelped next to me, almost colliding into the closest desk.

“Look carefully at the shape—” Tenten pointed to the center, where there were three stray desks acting as the center point. “—It looks like a flower!”

She was right—it did! There were three large points, with the end split in another three or two, and the three single desks were the little beads at the center (I should ask Ino for the right words, I don’t know flower terms). It was nagging at the back of my mind, something about it that should be talking to me, but it was weird. Why a flower? Help and now a flower?A flower of help?A flower to help? It needs the help of a flower?

“It’s a sakura flower.” Ino finally revealed, hitting her fist into her other hand as she blurted it out without thinking, recognizing instantly since she worked at a flower shop and had exposure to these kinds of things.

I froze, finally getting it. The desks said help in _my_ classroom. The flower was the one from _my_ name.

The Clow Card was asking _me_ for help.

“L-let’s go back to class—” I linked my arm in Ino’s and started hauling her away. She looked at me then, long and hard, eyes narrowed and suspicious of me. I returned it with a look of my own. “Let’s clean up the class room before anyone notices!”

“Only if you tell me everything you know about this mess later.” She returned just as smoothly and I nodded, since I had already planned to.

We cleaned up the desks and returned them all to their designated places before anyone would notice. Most of the students came in later than usual, since they ran off to see the sakura flower designed desks outside, so we had more time to clean up and do our dutires. We managed to hide the secret of our classroom successfully and, as I expected, Ino cornered me at lunch. I pulled her outside to eat so that we could talk about it in peace, and I explained my situation with as much details as possible.

“So this is Naruto? And he needs the cards back in his book?” She repeated what I said, pointing at the flying fox in front of her, mouth wide open as she gaped.

“Yup, dattebayo!” He chirped, twirling in the air in front of her.

She snatched him out of the air, tugging his paws and wings in every painful direction. “How does this work? Batteries? Ventriloquism? A strong wind?”

“I told you,” I snatched Naruto from her hands and gently cradled him in my arms. He purred like a cat and rubbed his face all over my neck, which made me giggle. “It’s some sort of magical ability.”

Ino crossed her arms stubbornly. “Magic’s not real.”

A grin lit on my cheeks and I pulled out the little key necklace I’ve been telling her about. She watched me with critical eyes as I recited the chant and the magical circle flashed underneath me. Her eyes widened when the key (which she originally thought was my house key of all things) grew larger and stretched into my wand. She looked sceptic, and grabbed my wand and searched it over for ways that I could be playing tricks on her, but eventually, she tried to accept it.

“So one of those cards you need to capture is asking you for help?” She came to the same conclusion I did.

I nodded at her. “Yeah, but I don’t know which.”

“We should come back tonight, when there aren’t so many kids around.” Naruto piped up, sitting down in between us. “Criminals always return to the scene of the crime.”

“A card isn’t a criminal—”

“But it is a crime—breaking and entering!” He puffed up proudly.

Ino nodded along, lost in thought, and then her eyes flashed with an idea and her face grew into a beam. “I’m going to record you capturing that card!”

I hesitated. “I don’t know…” The cards weren’t really cards, they were people. I can’t really tell if they’d let us record their faces or not. Knowing the grumpy pair I started with, they’ll probably just yell at her to stop and at me for letting her go with it.

“Pretty please?” She widened her eyes and made them look like she was ready to cry, with a perfect pout and everything. This girl was good with her puppy dog pout. “I’ll use it for my project!”

I groaned, knowing that the fact she had a project was true. It was for our language class, to create a documentary or a film of someone they know and respect. I planned to do it on my mom, even if she was dead. I would film everyone in the family doing a commentary on her and then I’d wrap it up. Easy enough for me to do, since I wasn’t as good with technology as Ino.

“Fine…” I gave in.

“Great!” She pumped a fist over her head in victory. “And can I come over after school?”

I gave her an exasperated look, but since she probably just wanted to come over to get ready together for my helping the card, I grudgingly agreed. She wasn’t bad when we hung out, but she was hard on me when it came to my fashion so I was probably going to argue with her a lot tonight. She’d want me to look “appropriate” for camera, for sure.

Oh, and I shouldn’t call out Zaku and Deidara tonight for a chat as well, or it would probably freak her out having them there. Wait, she doesn’t even remember them, so maybe it wouldn’t be as hard on her as I originally thought. Still, I shouldn’t let them out, just in case the whole cards-being-ninjas would freak her out.

The rest of the day passed slowly, the minutes dragging on as Ino and I tossed notes at each other and communicated through facial expressions in class. Eventually even cheerleading practice passed (and Ino was annoyingly filming me through it as well) and we made it home.

“Ino’s staying over!” I yelled as we crept upstairs. Well, I tried, but Ino spotted Kiba in the living room and pounced into his lap for some prime time snuggling. I rolled my eyes and let them be, continuing on my adventure to the upstairs. Naruto flew out of my bag as soon as I dropped it on my desk and then sat on the Clow Book.

“Anything?” I asked him. “Did you get some sort of feeling anywhere in school that could lead us to the card?”

He shook his head. “Nope. I only felt it in the class room and when we went outside to check out those desks.”

I nodded and then shrugged. “Then I guess we can just start in the courtyard and work our way into the school to my classroom. If we catch it immediately, then we don’t have to worry about breaking into the school, which I hope we won’t do.” I smirked. “That’s a crime.” He gave me a look back, for mocking his earlier words.

I started feeling a slight ringing sensation in my ears, almost as if it was piercing through my mind. I looked around, disgruntled, and tried to figure out what was making the noise. It kept ringing every few seconds, almost like an alarm, and it was getting annoying.

“Are you okay?” Naruto asked, tilting his head. “Are you sensing a Clow Card?”

“I don’t think so,” I murmured, slowly losing my patience. “There’s this annoying ringing in my ears that I can’t shake off...”

“Oh that!” Naruto grinned and glided back over to my bag digging into it. “It’s the just the Clow Cards—” he pulled them out and brought them over. I looked over at them and found the Fly flashing gold at the beat of the ringing pounding in my ears. “—that’s how they ask to come out of their cards. I can teach you to ignore it though, so that it doesn’t become a hindrance.”

“Okay,” but I still grabbed the Fly though, because I wanted it to stop as soon as possible now. A few quick chants later, I was holding my wand and Deidara kneeling in front of me again. “What is it?”

He stood up as soon as I spoke, stretching his arms above his head. “It’s so stuffy in there, yeah.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You wanted me to call you out so you could have some fresh air?”

“Yeah, kinda, yeah.” He groaned when he finished, bouncing lightly on his heels to make sure his entire body was set and comfortable to move around with. “That, and I wanted to tell you that I can totally blow up the school if you need me to, hmm?” His eyes were wide and sparkling, excited about the concept about blowing up things.

“Just for that,” I glowered at him. The idea may sound tempting—seriously, who likes school?—but I wasn’t cruel enough to do that to those who actually needed it. “I won’t call you out against this Clow Card.”

His jaw dropped and he glared, though not hard enough to affect me and piss me off. I had the pants and the control in our odd relationship of master and cards. “Come on, yeah! I was just joking!”

I turned away, trying to look cool and collected. “That didn’t sound like a joke to me.”

“Come on, Sakura, yeah! I’ll be good—”

“Who are you talking to, Sakura?” The door slammed open and Ino waltzed in like a ninja. I hadn’t even heard her coming! Her eyes landed on Deidei. “Why does this freak look like me?”

“Excuse you, yeah!” He stomped over in her direction until he was standing in front of me protectively, as if Ino was an enemy. “ _You’re_ the one—” He jabbed a finger in her direction “—who looks likes _me_!” He tapped his thumb on his chest for emphasis.

I sighed, since maybe letting the Fly out wasn’t such a good idea. “Relax, you guys.” I grabbed Deidei’s arm and tugged on it until he relaxed and backed off. “Ino, this is Deidara, he’s the Fly card.”

“The cards are alive?” She shrieked.

I winced. “I already told you that!”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it’d be a person!”

Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to let him out.

“Hey, that’s rude, hmm!” Deidei yelled back. I looked at him in confusion. He continued. “I’m not just a person! I’m part of the Akatsuki, so if you piss me off any more than this, I’ll totally kill you, yeah!”

Ino blanched.

I glared at him as hard as I could. “No killing!”

He pouted and looked over his shoulder at me. “You’re not fun.”

I crossed my arms and tried to be as stern as I possibly could. “I’m never fun.”

“It’s true!” Ino chided. I gave her a look to shut up and she gave me a smirk back.

“Okay, anyway,” I shook my head, trying to focus on the task at hand, “so I used the Windy to release the Clow Cards, and I’m pretty sure that one of them was the cause for the sudden mess at school.”

“Ninja school?” Deidei asked in a whisper, eyes wide and sparkling. “Man that brings me back!”

I didn’t want to remind him that we’re not technically back in our regular world, so ninjas did not exist here in anything other than fairy tales, but I realized that since he was a Clow Card, he technically was still allowed to be a ninja, unlike me. The rules were really odd in this world, and totally unfair as well. I wanted to be back to my awesome ninja self!

“You’re lucky it landed in school and not the other side of the world,” Ino remarked, crossing her arms and shifting her weight, showing attitude towards Deidara, even if he had nothing to do with it.

“Even if they did,” Naruto was back to sitting on the Clow Book and trying to sense the cards, “they’re attracted to strong magical power. So the stronger Sakura gets with her magical abilities, the better and faster she’d be able to attract the farthest Clow Cards, like a magnet.”

“What if someone else has magic powers like me?” I piped up, in hopes that I really didn’t have to start worrying about some unlucky souls with inherited powers they didn’t know about.

“That’d be a problem.” Naruto opened his eyes, looking at me seriously. It was odd having him this way, and I couldn’t wait for him to get his memory back and act like his old self again. “The Clow Cards would haunt that person to their grave.”

“You’d need to hurry and catch those cards then!” Ino jumped excitedly, pulling off her backpack (that I didn’t even notice she had) and opening it. “Which is why I brought you this outfit!”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I grumbled unhappily, since I knew that whatever clothes she had planned for me to wear was going to be way more extravagant than it needed to be for the situation.

“It has to do with you looking as awesome as the magical girl you are!”

“Oh god no...” I crept backwards, but Ino was on my tail, since Deidara (the traitor) moved aside to give her leeway. “I’m not wearing one of your outfits!”

“Yes you are!”

“Am not! You’re only good at picking flowers!”

“Psha, that’s just practice for my outfits!”

She managed to pounce on me then, forcing me to change into her clothes against my will. Mid way through my shirt though, we realized Deidei was still in the room watching (“Don’t stop because of me, yeah!”) and I forced him into his card, slammed Naruro into a drawer, and finally allowed Ino to give me the makeover she’d been dying for.

An hour later found me in front of “my” school’s gates, completely transformed. My long hair was pulled up into a ponytail with a red bow for convenience, all except for my forehead-framing bangs. I sported a matching thick red cape that was surprisingly warm in the cold night (with a bow at the front), with matching mid-thigh red tights. There was a snug white corset top, matching combat boots and gloves, and finally the black shorts finished the ensemble.

“Ready?” Naruto asked as he flew over to land on my shoulder. He had a matching red bow wrapped around his neck.

My cheeks were bright red at the exposure my body was under. “Not really.”

“Suck it up.” Ino hissed behind me, from the safety of her camera. I heard her shuffle before she shoved me, and I stumbled forward. I turned to stick out my tongue at her before climbing the gate, making sure my cape wouldn’t get caught as I went. I unlocked the door for Ino once I was sure everything was safe from my side. She stayed behind me though, determined to catch my every move on camera.

Naruto took the chance to fly ahead. “I can sense it.”

“Yeah?” I glanced around, and even though I could feel a weird tingling feeling like someone was watching me (probably Ino), my card sensing skills weren’t as great. I couldn’t tell anything, unlike Naruto, who was a pro at it.

“There it is!” He cried, flying back until his tiny body hit my face. I swatted him away just in time to catch the growing shadow slithering in our direction. I quickly jumped aside, not to get touched or hit by the strange shadow, and it surprisingly avoided me. I didn’t wait to see what it was aiming for though, and quickly called out my wand. My free hand hovered closer to my pocket, for my cards (the main reason I begged Ino for shorts instead of a unitard).

“Sakura!” Ino gasped before I had time to realize. I turned to her, worried out of my mind, and watched as she turned to me, almost like a robot. “Help!” She cried, as her arm swung back against her will and whipped the camera at me. I dodge it like the ninja I used to be, and Ino whined at me for not catching it like I was apparently supposed to. I glanced down and understood what had happened—the shadow had been aiming for Ino all along, linking together with her own personal shadow, and thus controlling her every move. Just like the Shadow Possession Justu. And there was only one person I knew was able to use that move. Shikamaru.

“It’s the Shadow Card!” Naruto echoed my thoughts. “You gotta make sure he doesn’t grab your shadow or you’re a goner!”

For now though, he had Ino under his control. Under any normal circumstances, I would be worried about her personal type of possession jutsu, but this was a different world. She wasn’t a ninja anymore. Even if Shikamaru planned for her to swap minds with me, it was impossible, she would only be able to do so as a Clow Card, where she’d be allowed to use a justu, but now she couldn’t. She was an empty threat.

...An empty threat that was suddenly running straight at me! Considering the fact that Shikamaru was a lazy ass and running towards his opponent was definitely something he wouldn’t do, I was thrown for a loop. She jumped on me, throwing me to the ground with her weight. I had to struggle with her, to keep her hands away from my throat, because that’s what she was desperately trying to do. She quickly shifted so she was straddling me though, a heel digging into my hand to keep it pinned to the ground. Her hands, instead of trying to choke me like I thought they would, went to prying my fingers away from my wand.

The Ino who was under control kept apologizing and screaming and trying to take gain control of her body back. However, while the old Ino was an expert at controlling the inner mind, Shikamaru’s shadow possessed her with an exterior force, and therefore she had no idea how to break free.

My fingers were strong though, and I kept them expertly glued to the body of my wand. Ino had trouble too, her fingers unable to get a good grip on my hand or my wand. It was like she was going at it blindly, like a baby with lower motor skills. That, or Shikamaru had trouble with his mission.

I tried to imagine myself in his shoes. He was some ways away, by himself, straddling air as if it were me. He had to mimic our fight so that Ino moved correctly. He doesn’t know precisely where my hand or my wand is positioned. That meant he had to be really far away, where any set of human eyes would had trouble getting information.

Lady Luck playing in my favour, I spotted the shadow recede from Ino’s just as she flopped on me, tired and panting. My struggling against Ino and delaying my wand to get captured forced Shikamaru’s chakra to finally run out, which would now grant me an advantage. However, with my current position, I was in the wrong place to catch him, in the light of the moon. He could easily wait in the shadows to wait and recharge before trying again to possess one of us.

“Finally... free...” Ino gasped, rolling off me in order to lie down on her back and watch the darkened sky with its twinkling stars. “I’m just going to stay here for a bit...”

I sat up and looked in the direction the shadow came from, just in time to catch a glimpse of a dark shape moving away. I jumped to my feet in alarm, just in case it was thinking of running at us in person this time, and pulled out the card I wished I didn’t have to use. “Fly!”

Deidara came soaring out, an array of tendrils of energy merging together under him to create the form of his clay dragon as well. He had been waiting to be called, I realized, more relieved than irritated, as he coloured the skies with beige, flying large circles ahead.

“Come on, yeah!” Without waiting for a demand, he dived low next to me in order to grab onto my cape, yanking me next to him on his airborne clay creature.

“I thought you’d appear as wings on my wand!” I growled at him, rubbing my neck, where my cloak tied together, as his pulling me along forced the material harshly against my skin.

“That takes too long, hm!” He replied easily, steering his dragon expertly, dodging the building to avoid damage. I was proud of him for that. Once I gave him directions to head to the window where I last saw the shadow and to break the window (there was no other choice! I had to reach the location faster than it could leave it!), Deidara was ecstatic that I was allowing him to blow up something. However, he put too much energy into it, and his clay destroyed more windows than I wished he had. I couldn’t complain though, and hoped off the dragon with a salute. He stayed in the skies though, just in case I needed to emergency exit right out those same windows.

I faced the darkness of the classroom. The desks were arranged again. This time, they spelled out one giant word.

_NO._

It must have meant that I was in the wrong classroom, I quickly assumed. I knew the answer to this riddle though, and ran in the one place where the final show down would end up. I turned left and down the hall, the one I was painfully familiar with. I turned at the before last room before the corner.

My classroom.

I slammed the door opened and was faced with more emptiness. The desks were arranged here as well, back to the old _HELP_ from this morning. That’s what struck me as odd though. Why he would need _my_ help? He was a better strategist than any other genin, chunin, or heck, all the ninjas I know. It was rather us that would need his assistance. This help he needed couldn’t have something to do with being a Clow Card. Something about the whole challenge made me think that either it truly wasn’t Shikamaru I was facing, that it was someone else, (but that’s hard to believe with the Shadow Possession I just witnessed) or maybe _he_ was being possessed as well.

“Sakura!” Ino cried to me, and I zigzagged through the desks to the window, to see what the problem was. I saw Ino first, sitting up and pointing in the skies, to Deidara. There was Naruto as well, whom I had completely forgot about as the battle started, floating near her. And then there was Deidara on his dragon, both were out of control, flying in every direction and dangerously too close to the school. I tried to understand why he was going crazy, and looked down in time to see him struggle to fly away from the shadow’s reach without putting Ino or Naruto into shadow possession distance. It was surprising how thoughtful Deidei was being today.

His eyes glanced up from the ground to lock into mine, and they widened. He pointed at something behind me. However, that was his downfall, because the shadow took advantage of his trying to warn me and captured his shadow. His arm lowered. He tried to struggle. It was futile.

“Don’t move.” The voice of the familiar shadow user that I knew whispered in my ear, surprisingly unlike himself. “Or I’ll make him blow up this place.”

“What do you want?” I asked back, just as I spotted Deidara raise his arm to his neck. I glanced to the side and noticed the kunai placed at my own tender flesh below my chin.

“I’m here to warn you, cherry blossom.” He pressed the kunai onto my skin until it scarred and left a small trail of blood. “If you dare oppose me and abolish the will of red and black,” he suddenly brought up the kunai, swiftly and sharply against my cheek, leaving a fresh cut, “ultimate judgement will pass upon you and you will face eminent death.” He purred the last word, it dancing on his lips.

I kept my eyes latched on Deidara as I watched him suddenly look down at his hands like they were new.  He was free from possession. His head snapped up at me though, and his fists quickly latched onto his dragon as he ordered it in my direction. The laughing lips were on my neck, for the blood he had created. It was simply to infuriate the blond, I could feel it.

Deidara leapt off his dragon and came crashing through the window next to mine, instead of the one we were at, to avoid the shattering glass that could endanger me. The man in Shikamaru’s skin jumped away, behind the podium, just as Fly tugged me behind him as he advanced in front of me protectively, eyes ablaze and hands ready to blow shit up.

I would’ve let him do it too, if it weren’t for one little detail.

Shikamaru’s clouded eyes suddenly cleared and his posture returned to the familiar slouch of the lazy ass I knew him to be. He let out a sigh, a “how troublesome...”, and flopped to the ground in exhaustion.

Deidei’s posture didn’t shift though, so I shoved him aside as I practically ran to the pineapple head on the ground. He growled at me that I was being an idiot and was going to get killed for doing that one day, but he let me go nonetheless. He must’ve remembered that I knew the Team Asuma member from past experiences. It was fine though. Shikamaru’s body had been taken over in some way, so now that the danger was gone (for now) it was safe. Shikamaru was a friend. I reached the podium and glanced down, and the poor soul was conscious, eyes twitching and face contorted.

“Are you okay?” I asked tentatively, when he didn’t move.

He closed his eyes. “No.”

“I know how to help then.” I smiled, holding out my wand. Shikamaru didn’t even need to glance at me to tell what was going to happened, and he murmured “what a drag...” as I recited the sealing words Naruto told me yesterday, wand and magic circle all in motion. Tendrils of energy slowly came out of Shikamaru as he allowed himself to be created into a card (I bet you he was just too lazy to put up a fight), slowly pulling him off the floor. The card created itself at the tip of my staff and I caught it as it flew towards me. Shikamaru was standing on the left side of the card, only allowing his side profile to be visible, his design the same pastel white as the other cards of mine. Opposite of him was a shadow with his same profile, only completely dark instead of white and without any detail, also mimicking him like a mirror, back to back. The Shadow was printed in the golden ribbon underneath him.

I glanced back at Fly, who was waiting impatiently by the window, and flashed him Shikamaru’s card in victory. He nodded and waved at me to hurry to him so that we could get out of the classroom.

“This place is creepy.” He commented before letting out a whistle that called his dragon to him.

“It’s school.” I deadpanned, grabbing onto his red and black cloak so that I could climb on his flying creature after him. “It’s supposed to be creepy.”

He snickered, quickly guiding us downwards, to where Ino and Naruto were waiting. Ino had her camera in her hand, the red light bright and recording. There must not have been much damage to it when she was forced to toss it. I flashed them the Shadow card like I had with Deidara, and we shared cheers through sky and ground.

“I can give you a ride home, if you want,” I addressed Ino as I jumped off the clay dragon, dusting off my cape to make sure I hadn’t destroyed or soiled it in some way. Naruto flew over to grab the Shadow card from my hand and inspect it.

Deidara’s disgruntled “I’m not giving her a ride, yeah!” echoed in the air.

“But Deidei!” I whined, instead of my usual forceful tone, and he was taken aback.

“It’s fine,” Ino waved him away, handing him one of her own sneers. “I don’t want a ride from _him_ anyway.”

“Pig.” I nudged her. “Don’t be mean to my slave!”

“Not your slave!” Deidara hissed fruitlessly.

“Well, forehead, if you put it that way...” she crossed her arms and leaned towards me with an evil smile. “...having your slave drive me around sounds like a grand idea!”

“Glad you think so!” I mimicked her sudden change to a more sophisticated language.

“Well then m’dear Majestic Forehead, lets hop to it then!”

“Indeedly do, Miss. Golden Pig!”

The entire conversation through, Deidara was whining and complaining, now determined to not give any of us rides. It was short lived though, because Ino’s cell phone suddenly started ringing. Why a ten year old kid would have on cell phone on her person is a mystery to me. Still, it was worth it if people could call her and not be crazily worried about her location. I knew for sure that Kiba was going to give me an earful once I arrive home, for not telling him where I went (I’ll tell him I went to Ino’s, and that should calm him) since Dad was still away at work.

“Hello?” Ino picked up the call without waiting. “Yes. Yes. No, it’s okay. Alright. I’ll be here. Thank you! Bye.” She snapped the phone shut and gave me an explanation. “My body guards are coming to pick me up now, so I guess the ride with the Fly will have to wait for another time.”

“Don’t worry about it!” I chimed, and Deidara let out a sigh of relief from his giant dragon. I shot him a look and he glared right back. I took out his card from my pocket and called him to return, and he groaned and complained as he was forced back into the house of his card.

“That Shadow card...” Naruto flew over and gave me back my card, afterwards sitting on the top of my head. “It’s known to be one of the smartest yet cowardly cards of the bunch.” He sounded serious, which was way out of character for him. I get that’s what happens when you think for once. “I don’t understand why it would be so aggressive, dattebayo!”

“He was being possessed.” I filled in, reaching up to pull him down onto my shoulder instead. I couldn’t see him from up there, which made it uncomfortable for me.

“That’s that first time I heard about a Clow Card being possessed.” He surmised. “But it would make sense. Shadow really wasn’t acting like himself.” I nodded in agreement, then quickly asked Ino for a pen. Ino, who was totally prepared for anything at the right time, handed me one from her purse and I was able to sign my card before I forgot. She didn’t bother ask why though, and instead focused on another question that was on her mind.

Ino looked positively confused. “Shadow possessed me while being possessed himself?”

It was weird having Ino, who used to be one of the most knowledgeable about possession getting stumped about that very topic. I shrugged. “It can happen apparently.”

“Maybe that’s why he was sending messages for help?” The little fox pumped a tiny fist into his other open paw, as he realized it. “He was somewhat able to gain consciousness and realized you were near, Sakura? So he asked you for help?”

I nodded. “That’s a good guess as any.” I couldn’t think of anything better for myself.

“We should ask him in person.” Ino piped up again, pointing to the cards in my hands. “Now that you’ve captured him, it should be easy to get information out of him.”

“Ah, sure.” I glanced down at the card in my hands though, refusing to move an inch, my wand staying by my side. I didn’t really want to release him just yet. I wanted to do it in a safe environment where neither things nor people could get destroyed or hurt. If I released Shikamaru and he turned out to be possessed again, then who knows how well I would be able to control it. I could only think of allowing him freedom as soon as Ino left, because the school was devoid of people and it was already destroyed (thus if it got worse, I don’t have to worry about anything).

“Forehead?” She asked when I didn’t respond, putting her hands on her hips. “Well? Are you going to do it or not?”

“Chill out, pig, I’m just thinking.” I threw back at her and she rolled her eyes at me.

Thankfully, that’s when her limo rolled in and her guards came out to fetch her. I watched her go, waving goodbye, and she left with a “tell me how it went!” before I was alone with Naruto, who was faking being a plush toy in my arm. He quickly went back to flapping his wings and hovering in front of me, now that we were the only ones left. I no longer felt safe though, as if something or someone could randomly jump out at me. I did, however, still have my staff out, so I wasn’t completely helpless. One good hit to the face and I could easily knock them out. Hopefully, my staff wouldn’t break—I mean, it is made of magic after all.

“Before I call out the Shadow,” I spoke up, twirling my wand idly in my hand as I thought, “do you think he’s still possessed?”

“Honestly, now that you’ve established your complete dominion over the Shadow by signing the card,” he flew over and pointed to my printed name at the bottom, looking as if it belonged there rather than any other name, “you magic should drive away any other evil forces that came over him. He should be safe now.”

I nodded, taking a deep breath. I lifted my wand, closing my eyes, and released the breath I was holding. I tossed the card in the air and met it in mid air with the tip of my wand. The tendrils of pure white magic and energy came flowing out, wrapping around the air around me and lifting dust I couldn’t see. I called out Shikamaru’s card name, and he materialized in front of me, slower than any card, but still kneeling like they were forced to.

He smirked at me. “You’re so troublesome, Sakura.”

I smiled back. “Welcome back, you idiot.”

I finally had one of my friends back.


	4. Watery

It has been a week since the accident, and I was growing more and more restless. Naruto would constantly tell me that it was only a matter of time, that the Clow Cards were bound to come after me one way or another. My magic just wasn’t strong enough for them to appear all the time, so I had to be patient. We made a plan to say in the vicinity of the town, since he was sure they would all naturally drift  to me in the end, but while we waited, we were going to search and try to activate any and all we could. Sure, I still thought this place was weird and insane, and that I was living a dream where I got to be a magical girl with magic cards, but I was adapting to it. I was warming up to the idea that we needed to cleanse the world of evil forces (it doesn’t help that it was my fault in the first place they got released) even if it was just a wild vivid dream.

On a completely irrelevant note, Naruto was ecstatic when he heard I was going to the aquarium with my class today.

“They sell the best ramen there!” He practically drooled. He followed me as I traipsed around my room, unable to get my butt in gear even though I was sure I was going to be late. I didn’t really want to go to the aquarium. I was having some weird freaky flashbacks of Zabuza and Haku when Team 7 went to Mist, and I really hoped that if I went there, to the aquarium, I wouldn’t see nor experience something like that again (I mean seriously Sasuke nearly DIED not that I care about that stupid backstabber). I was almost certain that a Clow Card would appear there—it had to! It was the perfect situation, _and_ it was one of the places I hadn’t checked yet. I couldn’t go to many places yet, because it was a long week and Kiba was on my back when Jiraya wasn’t home (which is always). Ino was surprisingly not clinging to him as much because she wanted to “design my next battle outfits with all her might” or something. While I’m glad that she’s staying away from him, I worry that she’s going to smother me in my sleep with all the unnecessary outfits she’s creating. It was weird seeing this side of Ino. I missed the old one that criticized my every move and chucked flowers in my face each time I caught her eye. She was loveable that way. Still, it was better than not having any friends to talk to at all, even if she didn’t remember a thing.

“They don’t sell ramen at an aquarium.” Shikamaru grumbled from the corner of my room, legs crossed and eyes closed. He was probably trying to take a nap in the midst of my mess. Many of us found school to be too early and were unable to rest properly. I was decent with the time, though any earlier and I would definitely sleep in late to the best of my abilities.

“Well when I become Hokage—” My face, that was already solemn, fell even more at that word, because it reminded me so much of the old Naruto, of the world I could no longer return to unless (and I’m assuming here) I catch all the Clow Cards. I was impatient to catch them all as soon as possible for that reason. I want to go home! “—I’m gonna have all the aquariums sell ramen!”

“That’s a stupid dream, yeah.” The voice of Deidara drawled from outside of my window, upside down no less, as he dangled from the roof.  He was growing the habit of relaxing up there, more so than when I usually kicked the boys out the window in the morning whist I changed, since they were adamant on claiming my bed during the night. It became a deal that they can sleep on the bed as long as they gave me privacy when I needed it (and it was easy to discipline them when they misbehaved). Zaku, my first card, was submissively grumbling to himself on my bed, now useless after having dried my hair after a good shower, and didn’t dare acknowledge any one of us in fear of catching “The Loser”, a disease he made up himself. Deidara was still talking; “But I guess coming from you, it must be the most impressive one you got, yeah?”

I could see the steam that blew out of Naruto’s ears. “You’ll see, you bastard! I’ll make _everyone_ sell ramen once I’m the Hokage, dattebayo!”

The snort that came out of my lips was involuntary, but definitely honest in its disbelieving nature.

The little fox turned to me, appalled. “Sakura-chan?” he gasped, “you don’t have faith in me-tebayo?”

“Considering you’re a little fox right now,” I petted his head for emphasis and he purred into my hand. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Sakura!” Kiba called up to me, and his voice sounded like he was at the bottom of the stairs. “Come eat before breakfast gets cold, you spoilt brat!”

I ignored his name calling. “Coming!” I turned to Naruto with a finger up sternly. “Don’t sneak into my bag like last time! You’re not allowed to come!” And snapped my bag shut for safety. Giving him one last look, at which he pouted and tried to give me the puppy—fox?—dog look and tried to convince me otherwise. I quickly ignored it and closed the door to my room behind me before I went skipping downstairs, where breakfast greeted me.

“Geez, any louder and you would have woken up the entire neighbourhood!” My stupid supposed brother snickered as he passed by me, plates in his hand as he set the table. I kicked him in the leg as he passed, and he hissed and tried not to fall over, or else the precious food would have been lost on the floor. “Watch it! I’m with food!” Akamaru barked in agreement at his feet as he followed him obediently around, in hopes that food would indeed fall and he’d get a good portion of human food as breakfast.

“And I’m with evil brother!” I shot back as I slid into my seat with a grin.

“Watch it or you’re not getting any!” He cackled and hovered my plate near me, just out of arms reach.

Linking my fingers together and bringing them to my face, I gave him the cutest look I could. “You’re the best big brother ever!”

He puffed up proudly. “Heck yeah I am!” And gave me my plate. He was too easy. What an idiot. “That’s what you think.” He added quickly andgave me a look as if he just read my mind.

“You better not be one of those mind reading twilight vampires!” I hissed and used my fork to jab his arm.

He fake-hissed in pain before he gave me a shrug. “You were speaking out loud.”

Darn this mouth and its beautiful language!

“It’s not that beautiful!” Brother cackled.

“Shut up and eat your food!” I whined, grabbed his wrist—the one that was holding onto his fork with a pancake dangling on it, and shoved the food in his mouth. He struggled and tried to break free of my grip, but as soon as his tongue registered what was happening, his eyes closed in bliss.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re good at cooking,” I rolled my eyes at him and he smirked back, “rub it in why don’t you.”

A pancake appeared in my face to precisely rub it in.

“Not literally!” I hissed and proceeded to shovehim from across the table. He laughed to himself before finally leaving me alone to finish his own breakfast. I hurried to scarf my own down, not having much time to relish in the good food that was surprisingly from Kiba (I know right? You’d think he was only good at making food for Akamaru!). I brought my plate to the sink before I skipped back up the stairs and to my room. I quickly grabbed my things, recalled the boys into their cards, pulled Naruto out of my bag (he still managed to sneak into it) and then finally hightailed it out of the house with my roller blades on.

At the sight of my fake brother leisurely biking in front of me, I pushed my legs to the limit so that I could reach his side. “Yo Kiba!” Akamaru greeted me with a bark and tried to bite my sexy flowing hair. Kiba grunted a greeting, since really, it’s been ten minutes at most since we just saw each other at the breakfast table.

“Why do you always gotta come with me?” He whined.

I placed my hands together at my heart. “Because you’re always so lonely without me!”

“I’m not lonely without a loser like you!” he scoffed.

“Awww brother, that’s not what you say to your precious sister!”

“Stuff it, twerp.”

“Bark!” Akamaru added thoughtfully.

I snickered at yet another easy win. I was finally getting the hang of this brother thing! Sure, I used to be an only child, but having someone to argue with and make fun of (more than my Clow Cards, because I kinda gotta work on getting their respect for better teamwork, yeah? Though I could technically just force them to do that...) was the icing on the cake. I have been missing out! Not that bickering with Naruto in my previously life was any different, but here I didn’t have to worry that he’d no longer be my friend if I went over the line, but Kiba was forced to, because he was now technically a “sibling”. Siblings are supposed to take care of each other through thick and thin!

The stroll down cherry blossom lane was silent, but not in an awkward way, since I was busy looking at blossoms and twirling around nearly every five seconds to spot the most that I possibly could in my limited amount of time. It also had me slowing down, but I quickly caught up as if I wasn’t totally making a fool of myself. Kiba was mocking me under his breath but I ignored him.

My eyes caught one of the houses at the end of the cherry blossom road, where I could distinctly remember us stopping at a few times during the week for no reason, almost like it was habit. The “For Sale” sign that was usually on the lawn had finally disappeared today.

I looked at brother dearest. “Who used to live in that house? Wasn’t it on sale since, like, forever?”

He glanced at the building that I was pointing at and a smirk rose to his lips. “You don’t remember?”

I shook my head (and nearly choked on the long pink locks that flew in my mouth).

“When you were a kid, you had the biggest crush on the guy that lived there.” My eyebrows shot up in disbelief as he continued. “You would go over every day and try to impress him! You even tried to cook, but we all know how that went.” My face scrunched up at the insult he was throwing. “I don’t remember his name... it was Sui something... but still, you were _so_ attached! You followed him around like a baby chick!”

My cheeks flushed red at the mere thought of following someone around like a stalker. Still, he said the person was called Sui, and when I was younger, there was only Sasuke I liked, so a feeling of relief washed over me when I didn’t have to worry about that jerk face coming back into my life and showing up here. The sound of the name Sui unlocked something in my mind though and, like a camera, I saw little flashes of the childhood me following around a white haired boy. I would follow him a while, and when he’d get frustrated, he’d bully me like crazy, pull my hair, call me names, throw my toys and things, shove me, etc. but I would still get up and follow him obediently. Kiba was there too, in the corner, with what seemed like Akamaru’s parents (the dog must have not been born yet) and he looked like he wanted to intervene but couldn’t.

I pushed away the memories and pulled a face. It was so badly forged and forced and _humiliating_. Who would even create those memories for me? Even _I_ would hate myself if I still did that now. God, I looked so annoying! (Maybe that’s why Sasuke used to call me that...) Maybe whoever’s forcing these obviously fake memories on me was trying to send me a message of how I used to behave around Sasuke when I was a kid? Totally oblivious and love-struck? I had learned my lesson though—I am totally over him and hate him for leaving us. But even so, that was no reason to have this silly reminder to come hit me in the gut.

“Let’s forget all about that.” I tried, cheeks still flushed against my will.

“Sure, sure,” Kiba laughed.

“You win this round!” I shook my fist at him, as we eventually reached my school, and changed my fist to a wave as we separated. I slowed my pace and wheeled to my locker, where I spotted Ino waiting for me. She waved as she saw me, and I returned the gesture, and then she quite literally pushed her sketchbook into my face, until I groaned that she was destroying my nose and (quite normal sized, thank you!) forehead.

“Just making sure you see them,” she shrugged as she peeled the book off my face. She held it a normal distance away and pointed to the different details she had drawn. “This one would be if the Clow Card’s related to water, because its water proof, and this one is light for air travel or quick movement and this one—” she kept going on, in her own little world, while I fake-paid attention and wished to be anywhere else. I didn’t know what to wear at any moment of my life, so why did she need my consent? She would just force me to wear anything anyway. My opinion didn’t matter in the magical girl side of our relationship. Why did Ino have to make a big deal out of clothes?

“Are you even paying attention, Forehead?” Ino hissed and squinted at my face when she realized I truly didn’t care. She smacked me with her book. “I put a lot of work into this!”

“And—” I wracked my mind for a good comeback that would save my hide. “—I can’t really tell the feel of the outfit without actually trying them on, even if they’re all so cute?”

“Nice save.”

“Thanks, pig.”

“I like them all, detebayo!” A small voice chirped as my bag rustled wildly. I groaned but pulled off my backpack, and opened the pocket that I knew he was hidden in. Naruto came flying out, gasping and gulping for air, and then flew down to land on my shoulder. “Even though I couldn’t really see them, the outfits look good! Believe it!”

I grabbed onto the back of his neck, like a mama cat would to their kitten, and dangled him threateningly too close to my face. “I told you you couldn’t come!”

“But Sakura-channnn!” he whined, eyes large and wet with fake tears and friggin’ cute as hell.

“Aww come on forehead!” Ino cooed, unlike herself (she would have normally smacked Naruto and been angrier, if she had remembered who he was), and was giving me the same look that he wore.

“Fine!” I groaned, unable to have any say in the matter. “But make a sound and you’re dead!” I spotted the teacher for our trip, Kakashi of all people, that was making his way over. I quickly shoved Naruto in my bag, strapped it back on my back and saluted the lazy teacher. He gave a wave, mentioned something about waiting in the classroom to be called to come down to the buses, and then kept going. From what it looked like, he was heading towards the staff room.

Ino shook her head. “I hope Kakashi-sensei doesn’t make our entire trip late to the aquarium.”

I shrugged in response. “He’s early today so maybe it won’t be that bad?”

I was clearly wrong, because it was only an hour later that we were finally called to the busses.  The homeroom teachers were getting really impatient waiting for us to get a move on—they all wanted to do something else rather than watch over us. Even the bus ride seemed to make us even later than usual, with the two teachers up front bothering the driver. Kakashi and Gai were having some sort of rivalry event, something about knowing the most bus traveling songs to sing during travels, and were completely mesmerized in their contest to actually pay attention to the rest of us students.

“How old are we, pig?” I asked as I turned to my seat buddy. The bus was old, squeaky, rusty, and dirty. The seats even groaned when someone shifted a little in it. I was glad I lived near the school and didn’t have to ride it every morning. Maybe I should ask Deidei to destroy them so the school would be forced to get newer and better ones.

NO WAIT THAT’S NOT WHAT A GOOD STUDENT DOES—BAD SAKURA BAD—YOU GOTTA STOP HANGING OUT WITH THOSE HOOLIGANS!

And they so happened to be my Clow Cards.

Damn it. This wasn’t going to work.

Ino gave me a look as if I was the dumbest person she had ever met. “Ten, why?”

I looked her up and down, at her completely inappropriate way of dress—her usual skirt and shirt too short for comfort. “Then why are you dressed like that?”

“Because this uniform sucks.” She tugged at her skirt. “And a little customization is needed in every outfit, am I right or am I right?”

“Only teenagers can do that.” I huffed and crossed my arms.

“I think she looks great!” Naruto’s tiny fox head popped out of my bag in my lap.

“Shut up you pervert.” Ino and I hissed at him in sync. He whined and hid his head back into the bag. He really didn’t need to, because the best part about a road trip was that no one paid attention to anyone else but their friends, so we’d be safe even if he had popped out right in front of Kakashi-sensei. Actually, Kakashi-sensei doesn’t care about anything, so Naruto could actually pop out of nowhere in class and he still wouldn’t notice. That’s the kind of person Kakashi-sensei is in this world.  A lazy teacher that’s always late, doesn’t care about anything, and only reads the book my dad gives him (which is why I’m sure he’s showing favouritism towards me when I get his language class because I’m sure he just wants me to invite him over so that he can bond with my “father”.)

“You think there’s going to be a Clow Card at the aquarium?” Ino whispered to me, once Naruto showed his face to us again.

I nodded. “There hasn’t been one in days, so if one’s going to show up, it’s there!”

“We don’t know what it could be though...”

“I’m guessing something related to water, cuz like aquarium, yup, but...”

“There are many Claw Cards related to water! Believe it!” Naruto piped up. “There’s the natural element, Watery (but I doubt it, it’s too early) and Bubbles, and Cloud, and Mist, and Rain, and Storm...” he went on, and I got more and more depressed as he listed them off, because that meant I had to fight them all eventually, and I didn’t know what each could entail. I shuddered at the thought.

“Ohh!” Ino suddenly had an idea. “That means we can use that outfit I showed you earlier! The one I made especially waterproof!”

I grimaced. “I... guess?”

“What’s with that face, forehead?”

“Just disgusted by _your_ face, pig!”

“Forehead!”

“Pig!”

“We’re here,” came the lazy drawl from Kakashi up front. He was waving a hand for the rest of us to hurry up. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Wow, what lack of enthusiasm...” Naruto mumbled next to me. “This is a once in a lifetime trip to this thing called an “aquarium”! He should be pumped! Yeah! Believe it!”

“Shut it!” I hissed and forced him back in my bag with a hand. It was almost as if he was purposely doing things backwards to piss me off—he popped out and talked when he wasn’t supposed to, and didn’t when it was safe. But I guess that’s why he’s an idiot.

“Bags stay in the bus.” Kakashi said once he saw me get up with my bag on my shoulders. I nodded and dropped it, and Naruto whined from the safety of my books. I didn’t have any secret pockets on my outfit (plus I didn’t even want him to come along in the first place) so I gave him a small bye before ditching him. The class lined up outside the bus and was waiting for the guide to go get everyone. I waved to Naruto, who flew out of my bag and was watching me with teary eyes from the window. He was mouthing “RAMEENNNN” to me when he noticed that I was paying attention to him, so I swiftly turned away and ignored him. I heard him scream and whine from the inside that I was evil. The other students looked really surprised and confused as to why the bus was still making noise when everyone was outside.

Finally the aquarium guide showed up and let us in. After directing us to the main attractions and telling us to gather back at noon for a penguin show, she let us look around and do what we want. Ino and I separated from the group instantly and went straight for the jellyfishes, which happened to be the tub furthest away, for more talking privacy.

“I have an idea who it could be too.” I whispered to her as we pressed our faces to the glass and made faces at the poor faceless jellies. “But Naruto only knows them by their Clow name, and I only know them by their _real_ names, so it’s a loss cause.”

“Try describing what they look like?” She pulled away from the glass and turned her head to another group of sea creatures. “Look! Sea pancakes!” and ran off.

I quickly followed her to the next batch of sea creatures. As she said, the manta rays were as flat as pancakes and flapped their wing-like fins. It reminded me of Deidara, because he likes to fly around, and I suppressed a laugh behind my hand. Ino gave me a weird look but I shook my head at her.

“I tried, but Naruto said something like some of them have similar appearances. And some that might change their appearances over time.” I sighed. “Really, I can’t base it on the little knowledge I know about this person that I think may show up.” The ray tank was open at the top, so I could pet them as they passed, and even give them food if I went over and spoke to the workers at the booth nearby. I reached a hand in the water and petted the few that flew by. I wasn’t surprised when I felt it was wet and slimy, because hello it was swimming in water, but once I got over it, its skin was somewhat rough but soft. It reminded me of velvet.

And now I wanted red velvet cupcakes. Yum.

“Personality then?” Ino took my attention away from the fish, not wanting to try petting them herself because she might “ruin her nails”.

I shook my head, and pulled out my hand of the tank and shook it dry too. “He used to bully me as a kid, but the first two Clow Cards I’ve met are criminals and bully me too, thus really, anyone could bully me.”

“True.” Ino nodded. “You were such a wimp as a kid.”

Such an indirect compliment was more like Ino than her weird need to video tape me during card captures. “Aw thanks, pig! You’re not so bad yourself!”

She smacked me. “Shut up, forehead!”

“But you’re so nice to me!” I pressed my side against hers to add my weight on her. She struggled to hold me up and took a few steps to adjust her posture.

“Stop it, forehead!” She laughed.

There was another, deeper laugh behind us, almost mocking.

And then we were falling.

Ino and I landed in a confused heap.

“What happened?” I asked, then rubbed my knees from the sudden impact as they started to sting lightly.

“I don’t know!” She growled and looked wildly around. “I just adjusted my footing, but I must’ve slipped on something because next thing I know, I lost my balance!”

“There’s nothing to slip on though.” I commented. I joined her in scanning the area.

We shared a mutual look.

“Slipped on air!” I tried.

“Clow Card!” She said instead.         

I gave her a look at her answer. “Don’t associate everything that happens with Clow Cards.” She was more accepting of Clow Cards than I was. But she also wasn’t herself, so I couldn’t really judge.

She huffed and crossed her arms. “Whatever! I’m not wrong about these things!”

“You’ve barely seen Clow Cards in action, how would you know?”

“I just do!”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, whatever you say.” She was wrong though. She simply just fell (because Kiba’s secretly right, I’m heavy). I pulled her up with me, because she whined that it was my responsibility, and we tried to ignore what just happened. We kept moving through the aquarium, wanting to go to the second and third level, but they denied our classroom because we were only allowed on the first level. We sulked and trudged through, and Ino pulled out her camera as we did a second round taking videos and pictures of everything we could (without the flash of course, because that would disturb the animals). Of course, most of the time, the shots were of me and I got really tired of forcing smiles in her direction. She refused to stop though and I grumbled evil words at her.

“Guys!” Tenten came running to us. She wasn’t technically in our class, as she was older, but Gai-sensei had a habit of sneaking his favourite students with him wherever he went. And yes, that meant that Neji and Lee were also here. We surprisingly didn’t spot any of them as we went around. They must be totally hiding on the higher levels of this place, the lucky bastards.

“Yeah?” I asked, voice muffled as I pulled my face away from the glass of the angel-fish tank. “Wassup?”

“The penguin show is starting in a few minutes!” She told us before vanishing back to wherever she was hiding. We tried to follow her to the penguins, but we lost her along the way. Even after getting lost for a bit, we managed to make it in time. The penguin swam, dipped, dived, flipped, jumped, and did all sorts of cute little things at the penguin trainer’s demand, and they even bowed in sync. I wasn’t too impressed, as I did come from a world full of ninjas and chakra and overall insane adventures, but I still clapped, as it did seem somewhat fun and entertaining. If I were the trainer though, I’d teach it to climb walls and walk on water and break the floor with its fists. That is, if chakra existed in this weird place. I couldn’t tell if I was in a civilian town clear of ninjas, or if it was the world that lived without it. Either way, my chakra was suppressed, so I knew that as soon as I figure out how to return home, I’ll be free from the shackles of this world.

“You look constipated.”

“You look diarrhea.”

“You know that doesn’t make sense.”

“That’s what she said.”

Ino couldn’t take my weird retorts to her one-sided conversation and looked at me as if I grew two heads and called her mom an octopus. “Are you okay, forehead? You can usually make better comebacks.”

“Something’s...” I glanced up at her.My gut was clenching with sudden fear and anxiety. Something was throwing me off. I wasn’t this usually out of focus. Something was getting to me. My mind wasn’t ringing from the Clow Cards in my pocket, but I was getting a weird similar feeling. The crowd thinned behind me as they all slowly walked away from the penguin area. The voice of Gai was calling out to the students behind me and was urging them to hurry back to the bus. Ino shrugged at me and left with the other students around, as she’d rather not hear me speak than be late. I wanted to go too, but my legs wouldn’t move. Something compelled me to stay, so I searched the tank with my eyes.

I looked at the penguin, which was swimming majestically in the water, carefree.

I blinked.

A face suddenly morphed in the water behind it. An evil stare and leer. It was taunting me to catch it.

Clow Card.

Great, Ino was right.

The next instant, it was gone.

I let out the breath I was holding.

The water started shifting though, and while I thought it might just be the penguin trainer moving around, I was wrong. She yelled out in surprise. I shifted my look at her and noticed the hand that caught her foot. I gasped and pressed myself to the glass, confused and feeling delayed. The hand was tight and bruising, sucking the trainer further and further into the water, in hopes to drown her.

I smacked my fist against the glass. “Stop it!”

To my command, it stopped, and the water in front of my face shimmered and shifted until the face I had previously seen with the penguin appeared. It was transparent, but it was definitely the shape of a face. It was familiar too, male with shoulder length hair and, I think, no forehead protector. Itachi? Sasuke? Haku? “Sui”?

The face stretched into a sneer, showing pointed teeth, before it whirled and shifted and vanished again. He hadn’t left the tank though. It would be impossible without me noticing. So I thumped my hands against the tough glass and yelled for help. The strangers around me bristled and hurried to disappear, uncomfortable, unused to saving lives. These people were pathetic.

I saw a shift in the water. There was the shimmering form of someone lunging towards the woman in the water, who was vulnerable and trying to catch her breath. The person collided with the woman, his transparency not at all making him any less solid in body, and it forced her back underwater. I bit my cheek to resist from screaming at him, and instead tugged at my necklace, determined to stop that card. But something yanked on me from behind all of a sudden, and I was thrown back, landing on my butt.

My face snapped up. Gai-sensei was looming dangerously over me. His bushy brows and white teeth were glowing threateningly. Oh lords, anything but this!

“My my, what’s one of my great rival Kakashi’s youthful students not doing with the others?” he bellowed, and his voice echoed on the walls and made everyone in the room flinch.

I pointed to the penguin tank. “The woman got caught by something in the water—” I turned to look at her, but the scene was different—she was completely fine! She wasn’t being attacked anymore. I blinked a few times and stared in disbelief. Kiba was standing next to the woman in the water and was pulling her up on land as the penguin squawked and promptly fell on itself a few times trying to waddle over to her. Her and Kiba conversed, and she rubbed and mentioned her foot a few times, and Kiba looked it over and shook his head. He must’ve not seen what had happened, but still managed to save the day. I let out a sigh of relief. Kiba was apparently a good guy. That’s good. I didn’t have to worry about _him_ being the current Clow Card. Not that I ever thought he could be one. Still, I was glad I didn’t have to fight him.

Wait! What the world was he doing here at the aquarium?

I couldn’t run back to the glass with the penguins and my brother and the evil presence in the water though. Gai-sensei latched onto the back of my shirt and dragged me along. He sung a song about youth and sea creatures along the way, and I simply sighed and rubbed my temples and hoped he’d shut up soon. I was dragged all over the aquarium and finally to the bus with everyone else. I joined Ino, Naruto, and my bag without any more trouble, and the bus finally set off. Kakashi didn’t even bother taking attendance (if Gai hadn’t been there, I would’ve totally been left behind, for sure).

As soon as it was safe, Naruto stuck out his head from my bag and stared at me with big eyes. “Ramen?” he asked hopefully. I shook my head. Tears grew in his eyes.

“We weren’t allowed to go near the food,” I told him quickly, in hopes that he wouldn’t have a meltdown and scream and whine and basically ruin his cover. “We can go check tomorrow for real, since it’s technically the weekend and I might have time.” He brightened up, whooped really loudly (having a few heads turn in our direction), hugged my arm, and went back inside my bag and chanting ramen excitedly to himself. He was so hyperactive it was hard keeping up.

Ino was looking at me with wide eyes, expectantly. I knew what she wanted.

“No. You can’t come.” I lied. I wanted to see her reaction.

She reeled back, surprised, and placed a hand over her heart. “You would let him, the tiny evil useless fox, go with you but you would deny me, your truest and awesomest best friend ever in the whole entire universe?” Thankfully, Naruto hadn’t heard her and was still chanting a song about Ramen.

Ino’s giant ego brought a smile to my lips. “Of course I can’t, pig! You’re giant head would take up all the space in there!”

She scoffed at me, “You’re just jealous my big head is prettier than your giant forehead!”

I had to admit, that was a good comeback. “At least I _have_ a forehead!”

She gasped loudly, overdramatically, and the heads from earlier turned to us again, only this time with glares, because they wanted us to quiet the heck down. I whispered a sorry to them and corrected myself with Ino. “Fine you can come.”

“I can’t,” she replied instantly, since she already knew that I would cave first, “I have a date with Kiba.”

I pulled a face—I didn’t need to be reminded of that relationship—and placed a hand to my forehead, heaving a sigh. Of course she would make a big deal out of nothing. She was the biggest drama queen I knew! And her pride made things ten times worse.

“You won’t be able to video tape me with a Clow Card capture.” I told her when I realized that fact. The bus hit a sudden pothole and we went flying in the air for a few seconds, everyone shrieking in delight, since it was the closest thing to flying we could get. Wait, that was a lie—I actually have the ability to fly already. I’m so ahead in life!

“I doubt you would do a Clow Card capture in public.” She laughed at me, bouncing in her seat, hoping that the bus would repeat its incident and have everyone suddenly suspended in midair again.

“Who said I’ll be going in public?”

“If you want to buy Naruto some ramen, you kinda have to.”

“I don’t have to buy him—” I started, but my eyes moved to my bag automatically. I paused when I noticed the little narrowed blue eyes watching me, daring me to take back my word. I gulped and quickly reformulated my sentence.“—anything else but ramen. Yes.” I laughed awkwardly, watching him. His eyes slowly lowered from the crack of my backpack and I let out a sigh of relief, a hand to my chest. He was way too creepy than I thought was humanly possible. Not that he’s even human or anything. But just sayin’. Creepy.

“THE WHEELS ON THE BUS GO—” Kakashi was singing.

To which Gai answered; “—YOUTH AND YOUTH, YOUTH AND YOUTH, YOUTH AND YOUTH—”

“—THE WHEELS ON THE BUS GO—”

“—YOUTH AND YOUTH—”

“—ALL THE WAY HOME!”

I wish _I_ were home and not listening to this.

Half an hour to an hour later, my wish finally came true, as all the students ran out of the bus and the teachers’ horrible singing and into the school. The teachers, not at all insulted and were actually continuing their song battle on foot, took their time through the hall, tormenting the kids who took their precious time. I hurried to my locker, grabbed my lunchbox, and pulled Ino along as I ran the heck out of there. We took a seat under a large and leafy oak tree and ate our lunches.

Naruto was the one to start the conversation, floating between the two of us. “Are you okay, Sakura? I felt the presence of a Clow Card as soon as you entered that aquarium place.”

“Yeah, but,” I answered between bites, making sure to swallow so that I didn’t choke on the delicious food had Kiba made for my lunch, “a Clow Card showed up in the penguin tanks,” I glanced at Ino, “after you left me all alone!”

“Everyone was leaving!” She quickly defended herself, then realized, “I was right about a Clow Card popping up?” I nodded at her. “Heck yeah! I rule!” A few more seconds later. “That means I can make your outfit!”

I groaned. She smirked evilly in return, then stabbed her fork through the leaves of her salad threateningly, warning me that she was going to get her way. It didn’t work though, because I had the upper hand, having Clow Cards and everything.

Naruto waved a hand in front of my face, breaking the conversation through looks I was having with Ino. “What was the card like? Was it really water based?”

“Maybe?” I answered, squinting into the sky, trying to remember. “It was in the water for sure. I think it can turn invisible in water? It grabbed the woman’s leg and tried to drown her, and after he jumped on her completely. I think it was getting impatient.”

Ino nodded at me a few times while I talked, the gears in her head working. She was thinking about the next outfit she was going to force me to wear, I just knew it. I dared not bring it up. Naruto, on the other hand, did that same meditating pose he usually did with the Clow book, only this time it was while hovering in mid air. Front paws crossed and his back ones tucked in, it looked like was laying on a table completely still.

“I think I have an idea, but I don’t have enough clues to determine if I’m right or not.” He finally concluded, the serious look unbefitting. “Tomorrow we’ll investigate all we can.” He licked his lips. “Especially the ramen stands.”

I resisted the urge to punch his extreme desire for ramen right out of his mind. Instead, I took another bite of my sandwich. “Fine fine, but I’m going to have to beg dad for enough money to satisfy that stomach of yours.”

Turns out, I really didn’t have to do much. I waited outside the door to my room, knowing that Jiraya would be coming home tonight. Kiba was downstairs with Ino, who decided to tag along with me home (only to cling to my brother as soon as she saw him), watching a scary movie in the living room. I glanced at my watch every five minutes, knowing that Jiraya would arrive any second now.

Approximately two minutes and eight seconds later, the door swung open and a hysteric version of my father crashed through the door. “Oh heeeeeeeey—” he giggled and I heard a thump. I skipped down the stairs and waited on the second last step, since they were near the door and I didn’t have to go far to check on what happened. I turned to see what had been the source of the noise and saw that Jiraya had stumbled on air and had fallen over. He swung a sake bottle in the air above his head, even if his face was unattractively making out with the floor. One thing was for sure: he was drunk.

“Hey dad!” Kiba called from the other room, not caring that the older man or may not have just died. “I need some money!”

“Sure sureeee!” came the happy drawled response from the floor. “I have a wallet in the tenth closet near the jar of dirt on the ceiling!”

The world paused at the man’s explication of his wallet’s location. Even the screaming on TV echoing Ino’s frustrated yells at the protagonist seemed to stop. Somewhere in this world, a man stopped mugging a crying old lady to stare in our direction with utmost confusion.

“Don’t worry!” Jiraya continued, not following the mood he had just destroyed. “Sakura’s science fair cactus mango is protecting it!” He wheezed and laughed at the same time. It was really pathetic. “All you need to do is sing the magic words and BAM money in your shoe!” He had to be more than drunk—he was being delusional and making up less sense than usual.

“Sakura!” Kiba called me this time.

I was scared to answer. “Yeah?”

“What are the magic words?”

...I’m living with morons, holy jell-o. “Figure it out yourself!” I turned to dad, who was pushing himself off the ground with push ups. He did about ten before he flopped back on the ground and gave up. I could not, for the life of me, understand what was going on in that head of his. “...dad, I need money too.”

His head jerked up, eyes narrowing. “Whyyyyyyy?”

I rolled my eyes at him, hoping he wouldn’t get as dramatic as Ino. “I’m going out tomorrow.”

He instantly jumped to his feet, hands landing on my shoulders and shaking me dizzy. “WITH A BOY?”

“No!” I hissed, forcing down the embarrassed blush at how easily possessive of his fake daughter he was. I was going with a fox. A completely different thing. I shoved his hands off me.

I heard a loud gasp through the sound of one of the side characters getting stabbed from the movie. A shriek of “SAKURA’S GOING OUT WITH A BOY?” echoed from Ino’s loud mouth and reached at least the last house in this street.

“I’m not!” I yelled back, but she apparently couldn’t hear me because she leapt over the couch and came running at me. “Oh good lord,” I swore just as she jumped on me, toppling us both over.

Jiraya giggled something about a cat fight and frolicked away to go visit Kiba, who didn’t care that his girlfriend was attempting to force me into a seizure.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She hissed, shaking me worse than dad did (which is a surprise because the man is supposed to be stronger). “Who is he? Do I need to warn him to stay in line? Is he in our grade? Do I know him? Is he hot? OH MY GOD PLEASE LET IT NOT BE THE MAILMAN—”

I slapped her to shut her up. “Ino, I’m not going out with anyone.” Doesn’t she remember our conversation from earlier in the bus? Where I’m sure she heard me say that I was going back to the aquarium with Naruto?

“LIES!”

Oh yeah, that’s right, she’s a moron, just like her hair suggests (no offense to all other blondes, but this one needed to use her brain a bit more).

“I’m not lying!” I lowered my voice. “I’m going with Naruto, remember?”

“I do remember.” She told me, voice at the same level, but rising it up again. “BUT THAT WAS JUST A COVER SO YOU COULD BRING A GUY ALONG! I’M NOT DUMB!”

“YES YOU ARE!” With strength I didn’t know I have, I rolled us over, trying to grab at her hands that were hitting me everywhere. “Ow! Stop it!”

“I DON’T LIKE BEING MANHANDLED!”

“...not even by Kiba?”

“...THAT’S DIFFERENT OKAY,” she quickly fixed herself. “I DON’T LIKE BEING WOMANHANDLED!”

A groan escaped my lips, because no matter what, she was being impossible. I tried to grab her, but every time she’d dodge me and hit my nose, or forehead, or elbow, and then I’d strike back, and we were doing this wimpy swatting battle.

“KIBA!” I called, getting annoyed. “COME GET YOUR INSATIABLE GIRLFRIEND!”

“I’M NOT INSATIABLE!” Came the indignant reply on the floor. “I’M AS SATIABLE AS EVER!”

“DO YOU EVER KNOW WHAT INSATIABLE MEANS?”

“HECK NO, BUT I SURE AS HECK AM NOT IT!”

“STOP TRYING TO SOUND SMART!”

“YOU TOO!”

“Okay okay,” Kiba couldn’t fight the grin of his face as he strolled over and came to my assistance. I jumped off Ino and he picked her up like a child, over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and she squealed and giggled. And then she paused to give me a look and a Darth Vader “I’ll be back!” before going back to her being manhandled.

I followed them to the living room and found father sitting on the couch too, watching the movie. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Dad.”

He jumped a few feet in the air. “Sakura!” he gasped. “How could my own daughter scare me like that?”

“Give me money and I won’t do it again.” I bargained.

He pulled a face, because he was a man who especially didn’t like giving away his own money and instead liked wasting others’, but I was also a stubborn woman. If he refused, I would make scaring him the toughest days he ever had to live. I smirked at his deflated look.

“Fine.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, giving me a decent amount, and then doing the same to Kiba, because he complained about being unfair.

“Pleasure doing with you!” I bowed, then twirled around as if I had a cape and could magically disappear behind it, like those really cool villains. I skipped back up to my room just as I heard Jiraya go “You kids will be the death of me and my wallet.” And I threw my head up and belted an evil laugh, just or good measure.

“SHUT UP, MONSTER!” Kiba yelled after me. “YOU’VE HAUNTED US ENOUGH AS IT IS!”

I couldn’t be mad at that, because it was true. I entered my room and greeted Naruto by flashing my newly acquired money. He cheered, glad that he was going to get Ramen—and if not Ramen, some other kind of food—at the aquarium tomorrow. After preparing my bag for tomorrow and making sure everything was set up, I cleaned my room, nothing better to do. I couldn’t ask my Clow Cards for help with this either. Zaku would blow everything in every direction, Deidara would summon his dragon and blow things up (his “one jutsu” that he was allowed to use is only that dragon, which I’m sure wouldn’t even fit in my room in the first place), and Shikamaru couldn’t and wouldn’t even help, because it was too troublesome. I made sure my clothes were all tucked away (save for the ones I pulled out for tomorrow), I made sure that my floor was cleaned and could be walked on (and even slideable), then cleaned my desk and organized my piles of books and homework and general messes.

Naruto pulled out my cards as I worked, peering at them.

“Hey Sakura, can you describe that guy you thought was a card again?”

“Sure.” I sat on my bed and repeated my explanation from before. In my childhood, Sui had shoulder length white hair, short bangs, a round face, and always wore turtle necks. He had an average build and size for his age too. His personality was calm and collected, but once pushed to the edge (like apparently with my stalking him around), he’d snap and become a kind of bully that enjoyed bringing pain to others.

I tried to pull out anything I could from my old memory of the world where everyone were ninja. I remembered passing the Chuunin exams; I remembered Naruto returning to the village; I remembered saving Kankuro; then helping to kill Sasori, who so happens to be Deidara’s partner (I’m glad he didn’t realize that I was the accomplice, or else he’d probably become another reluctant card in my arsenal); there was the creation of Team Yamato, with Sai and Yamato; then the re-enactment on Tenshi bridge and—

A piecing headache ripped through my mind. I bit the inside of my cheek to force down a groan and placed a hand to my temple, rubbing it to try and soothe the sudden brain attack. Naruto tilted his head at me in worry but I waved him away, claiming I was tired instead. It wasn’t a complete lie either, after that long day at the museum, I’d probably need more rest than usual, especially after witnessing what happened with that Clow Card. But I had to think of something else first. What can I think of that could help?

Oh! The ninja used Water Jutsus! Since he was the aggressive type, he had to be a bigger threat than other ninja. What am I even talking about? If it were a Water ninja, that meant he had a higher chance of coming from Mist, which tried to destroy Konoha at one point in the past and probably had a grudge against Konoha. From what I knew, it could be any possible ninja in the world. It might not even be one that I knew!

“Sakura, you need to rest—tebayo!” Naruto floated over, higher than usual so he could reach my head and, for the first time ever, pat _my_ hair. I smiled and closed my eyes, letting him, trying to relax. The feeling of eminent doom refused to disappear though, and I was scared to know the truth behind the Clow Card’s true identity.

“If I could stretch this day out forever, I would.” I sighed to myself and Naruto flew over to my television. I got up and prepared myself for bed, and I saw him playing a game from the corner of my eyes, distracting himself. Once I had brushed my teeth, changed into my pyjamas, set the bed, I called out my Clow Cards to bed (because they would whine with the stupid ringing if I didn’t). Shikamaru went straight under the covers, not even hesitating, determined to sleep. Deidara leapt at the second remote for the game Naruto was playing and they fought each other to the death on the TV. Then it was just me and Zaku, who flopped on my desk chair, looking bored out of his mind.

“Hey, Zaku, I know you’re still kinda young—” he shot a glare in my direction. It was true though—he was the Clow Card that looked to be the closest to my body’s age, because he looked exactly the same as I remembered him (minus the arm casts). Shikamaru looked to be the same age when Naruto returned to the village, and Deidara looked to be in his late teens. I was the youngest, and it was frustrating because at ten years old, romance isn’t even a thing yet (except for Ino, who’s breaking all the age barriers). “—but I have a question.”

His eyes narrowed, but he nodded at me to continue, his hand twitching.

“Calm down, it’s not about you.” I snorted at the fact that he had tensed up and instead leaned back on the bed. My hands went back to support myself and instead of grabbing comfortable mattress, they landed on hard human legs. Shika groaned at me to move off him. I whined but complied, instead pulling my legs on the bed and crossing them. “I know that your partner Kin used her needles to create illusions.” He nodded again at me, eyebrows furrowed in curiosity at why I was bringing up someone who wasn’t even present. “Do you know if that technique, or a similar one maybe, is capable of creating the illusion of invisibility?”

“What,” Deidara snickered from the game, his ass getting kicked so he could afford to listen in, “you want to be invisible to peep in the boys’ bathroom, yeah?”

I stared fiercely at Zaku’s forehead protector, focusing, refusing to even spare a glance at the blond. “Fly.” I spoke his name warningly.

“Aw fuck.” He swore, knowing what was coming.

“Down.”

A split second later, his face came into impact into the floor, the strength of my command as strong as ever. I may have sounded calm, but my order was absolute and unflinching. He was lucky nothing broke on that pretty little face of his. Though, if I had my chakra back, he’d for sure at least have his nose broken, and maybe a few teeth as well, if I could get at him I mean. He was a fast and sly one.

“YES!” Naruto cried a few seconds later. “I WIN!”

“N-no fair, yeah!” Deidara tried to push off from the ground but was failing, since commands typically lasted for a few minutes unless I said so. “Sakura made me lose!”

“You can play from the ground.” Shikamaru grumbled, and I muffled a laugh behind my hand at the sudden attack. I thought he had been asleep!

There was a grunt and a frustrated yell from the floor, and Deidara was managing to prop himself up, slowly, ever so slowly, bringing his body up as well. I winced watching him, because it looked strained and painful and required strength I didn’t know the young man possessed. The boy was forcing himself so much his body was shaking. Zaku had his eyebrows raised, impressed, as Fly stood proudly, chest puffed up and everything, and he was ready to laugh in our faces that he was better.

I suddenly grew serious, scared of what he could do. If he could force himself out of my command like that, he could possibly become impervious to the “repercussion of hurting your master” statement of our contract. I didn’t want him to go wild. I didn’t want him to hurt me. I’m helpless in this kind of situation! “Fly, sit!”

I saw the force of my command fall on him, and his body jerked closer to the floor, as if something really heavy dropped on his shoulders.He barely managed to hold himself up, body twitching. I scooted backwards on my bed until my back touched the wall, protectively keeping a safe distance, and even that was no comfort. He slowly brought himself back up like before, chest up and all. I paled.

Deidara’s face grew into a satisfied grin, watching me cower in his presence. “I’m more powerful than you, yeah! I can do what I want! I am—”

Zaku, somehow still calm in the situation, made a face. “You’re not that impressive.” And held up his hand, shooting a strong jet of wind. The second the older man was forced back, he lost all his force and collapsed to the floor, exhausted. He must’ve locked his legs in place in some way, which could’ve kept him up. However, when he took a step back because of the wind, he lost all of his strength, and that was his literal downfall.

“Thank you.” I said to Zaku, who quickly glanced away at my words.

“He was just being annoying, that’s all.” Was his response. But I knew him. If he weren’t under my control, he’d have let Deidara stay up and may have even helped and would have enacted the revenge he so dearly wanted (even if it’s against the wrong person). I better not spill the beans of helping kill Sasori to Deidara. It’d be the _worse_ time for that. After learning that with enough willpower, he could go against my word, he might break my absolute authority in a large bout of anger.

But now, all that there was was a gurgling sound coming from the poor ninja on the ground, flattened by my command, limbs flailing in every direction as an invisible force practically tied him to my bedroom floor. I crept back to my old spot, peering over the edge of my bed, watching him as he gurgled and pleaded me with his eye to pull it off.

“No, you’re staying down there.” I answered, piecing my composure back together, refusing to seem like his sudden power had affected me. I needed to figure out a way to become stronger. It was odd how vague and loose the system was.

“Don’t worry, Sakura, dattebayo!” Naruto chirped from the floor, not even looking at me, paws still flying desperately on the remote as he played. It was a wonder he even knew what was going on around me. “Your ability to control the Clow Cards becomes stronger the more magic you grow and harness!” He paused his game and turned to look at me. “So don’t you worry-tebayo! Your magic still needs to grow!”

“How do I do that?” I finally asked, after the weeks of thinking it over and trying to come up with my own answer. “How do I develop my magic?” If I’m correct, magic in this world was the same as chakra, so the sooner I figured out how to use and unlock my magic, the sooner I was able to experiment with chakra and the rules of the world and then free myself from this world.

“Well the best way is by capturing Clow Cards, obviously.” I nodded, and he continued. “The second would be the bonds you have with your Clow Cards.”

That was a new one. I knew having a positive relationship made using them better, but I didn’t think that actually helped with my own personal magic resource. “What do you mean?”

He flew over to my desk and I followed him. He pulled out a loose leaf of paper I had in a neat pile on the corner of my desk and then grabbed my paper. He drew a bad attempt at a girl in the very center, which I think was supposed to be me. He continued the drawing by drawing the three cards I already had around me, adding lines that connected me to theirs.

He mentioned to his drawing.  “Let’s say this is a normal relationship.” I nodded. He added zigzags on the line between me and Deidara. “This is a bad relationship.” He added a line parallel to the one that was already drawn between me and Shikamaru, making it double. “And this is a very good relationship.” So far everything was pretty obvious—it was the visual representation of a regular relationship chart. Anyone could draw this, no matter the context. “The lines represent your magic.”

“I’m sharing magic?” I concluded.

“In a sense, yes. You always had magic in you but it was dormant. But,” he pointed at the key that was hanging on my neck, “the Clow Key unlocked that magic, making you capable of wielding the wand, controlling and using the Clow Cards, and so many other magical abilities, believe it!”

I diddly do darn did believe it, as I did come from a world where ninjas existed and I could punch a large crater through the ground without feeling the need to work out or do anything of the sort. Magic was almost a downgrade to this system, although I didn’t know much about it yet so I couldn’t fully tell.

“But since your starting magic is low and basic and doesn’t do much, you automatically absorb some when you capture Clow Cards, making it the best way to improve your magic.” I nodded. So far so good. This system seemed to work like the experience point system in most games. Win a battle and you level up. It was practical enough. “But you also have an Average Relationship Rating. The more positive relationships or moods you have between you and your Clow Cards, more magic is shared between both. Almost like a backup reserve? When you run out, the cards in the positives will lend more magic to help, and that allows your current magic to grow and become efficient, and it even does so even when you don’t need to borrow their magic.”

“Wait a sec, please.” I held up a hand to pause him, so that I could process what he had just said. The positive Clow Cards’ magic would back me up in a crisis, if I needed some, and since that makes me expel more magic than usual, that would expand my current skill level. And it also does that automatically, when nothing is happening, so I’m slowly growing. “Okay, I think I got it.” I lowered my hand and he continued with the lesson. It was odd, considering that Naruto usually is an idiot and is unable to remember anything if he put his mind to it.

“It’s the opposite with an overall negative relationship, dattebayo!” He circled the zigzag on the paper. “It’s a drawback for both the Cardcaptor and the Clow Cards. The negative relationships strains the magic sharing between the Cards and the master, and it makes it harder for each other to call on magic. The Cardcaptor would have a hard time building their magic reserves and would have a hard time controlling the cards. Luckily for you, Sakura,” he doodled a face in the corner of the page, separate from the other drawing, “our creator, Clow Read, transferred all of his magic in the Clow Book so that they’re drawing their energy out of that instead of you. Clow Cards depend on that resource, after all, because that’s what heals them and allows them to use their abilities.”

I blinked, glancing at my inactive Clow Book, with the three cards I had safely sleeping inside. If it was what was giving them power, why would they ever had wanted to leave the book? Oh yeah, they didn’t really have a choice, Zaku blew them away. I had a question in mind. “What if it runs out?”

Naruto shook his head. “The cards have been using its power for hundreds of years, so it won’t run out. But,” he shrugged, dropped the pencil, and flew up to my face, “if it ever did, their energy would be drawn out of you,” he tapped his paw on my nose, “because you’re their master now.”

I gulped. I didn’t even have that much magic in this world, so if a situation like that ever happened, I was the one in trouble. I wouldn’t be able to take care of all my cards if they suddenly have to seep my energy from me. “So I need to catch all the cards to develop my own magic so that if they ever run out of your creator’s magic, I can take its place.” Naruto nodded. And then another thought popped up. “Wait, if they can get energy straight from the Clow Book, then why would it be bad for the Clow Cards if we’re in a bad relationship?”

“You serve as a middle man—er woman—that’s why.” He flipped the page over, redrew my face and Deidara’s, along with the zigzag, and then instead of drawing the others, he drew the Clow Book. He traced a line between me and the book. “He needs to have a good relation with you in order to gain power from the Clow Book.” He glanced over his tiny fox shoulder, at the panting Deidara on the ground, who was finally free, clutching his chest in horror and muttering how horrible the experience of two layers of commands were. “Since Deidara had so much power that he was able to stand against your word like that—” Naruto started. I knew where it was going and didn’t like it. “—you two have a pretty good relationship.”

“Heck no, yeah!” came from the disgruntled blond.

“I agree!” I hissed from Zaku’s lap, since he refused to budge from my chair. Sitting on him and trying to squish him was the only option left. He was giving me a haughty look though, so I knew I was hardcore failing (plus I was ten, and kids usually weigh nothing at that time.)

There was a sly grin on Naruto’s face. “Proof doesn’t lie, dattebayo!”

“Is there some sort of mechanism that shows me the Average Relationship thing?”

He shook his head. “That’s something only you can figure out. I guess the only way to tell is your ability to use your cards. If you find it harder to summon them out like this, then it must mean something must be wrong somewhere. I can’t be sure though, I’ve never been a Cardcaptor.” He pouted, as if it were a dream of his to become a magical girl, having magical cards/ninjas bend to his every will, and saving the world one evil card at a time. I guess being a guardian wasn’t all that it was wrapped up to be. I reached out and petted his little head, and he automatically pushed his face further into my hand, purring.

“Okay, you’re getting heavy.” Zaku groaned, pushing me off and onto the floor. I whined but returned to my spot on the bed, not really bothered since I _was_ heavy.

I returned to the conversation at hand, though my eyes were starting to hurt, the sky getting dark, and my body wanted to sleep soon. “So are those the only two ways to get better magic?”

Naruto rolled up the ball of paper and dunked it into my trashcan like a flying basketball. “They’re the only ways I know, yeah.”

“Stop stealing my catchphrase, yeah!”

“YEAH YEAH YEAH!”

“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!”

“Who the hell are you talking to up there?” I heard Kiba hiss loudly from downstairs, the movie still going on somehow (that was one long movie). My room quite literally fell into hushed silence, and the only thing I could hear was the _thumpthump thump_ of my heart and the _haaaaaah hooooooh_ of my breathing. “Sakura?”

“Just myself!” I screamed back and the boys around me flinched at my surprisingly loud voice. “I’m practicing for a project!”

“Well shut up! I’m trying to watch a movie!”

“Same to you! I’m trying to practice and you interrupted!”

There was some sort of muttered reply that I had to strain my ears to hear. I think he gave up trying to argue, because his main point was said. The five of us agreed that it would be a good time to go to bed and rest, so we shut the lights, crawled in the sheets (we have a special way of organizing each other in bed so that we all fit, though there’s no more room so we can’t add anyone else), and quickly dozed off. I was so tired that I didn’t even dream, and when I woke up, I felt like I had only slept five minutes. Still, I rushed to the bathroom for a shower, and did my morning duties.

“I just remembered your question from yesterday.” Zaku told me as he brushed his fingers in my long pink locks soothingly, using the awesome wind pipes on his hands to dry them along the way.

“Oh?” I hummed, not really paying attention, eyes closed, enjoying the hair prep.

“Yeah. The answer is that I think not. Her needles mess with a person’s perception in the brain, so she can only alter what the person actually sees or hear. They have to see nothing for her to be nothing.” The wind from his hand only made a slight sound as it was expelled from his hand and made contact with my hair, making way less noise than my normal hairdryer. Another advantage was that he could easily alter the pressure he used, going from EXTREME REVERSE VACUUMING to petting a baby puppy from a distance in a few seconds, which was another pro. The man had nothing but pros when it came to that kind of awesome skill. Do you think that if he pointed his hand towards the floor, he’d be able to fly?

“Thanks, that’s useful information.” I murmured, lulled by his skilful hands. The others were moving about. Since Jiraya and Kiba were out earlier, I ordered Shikamaru to make me food (at which he complained but trotted off nonetheless) and sent Deidara out for a scouting mission, to follow my brother and then return and tell me where he and Ino were going to have their date. I didn’t want them to suddenly appear and ruin my Clow hunt. And Naruto, well, Naruto was still sleeping in my desk.

Once I felt that he was done and heard that he moved away to sit in my desk chair again, I opened my eyes. “You know,” I piped up, stretching my legs before getting up from my position on my bed. “You’re oddly obedient lately. What’s with that?”

“You’re not making any sense.” He huffed crossly, sending a glare in my forehead, as if he just remembered that he was supposed to be a villain of sorts and not actually willingly give me information.

“Well you’re no longer complaining about being my subordinate.” I used that word on purpose, to accentuate my dominion over them. His eyebrow twitched and I saw him clench his jaw, but he bit down his retort. “So something’s up.”

“Isn’t being _pleasant_ —” he chocked out the word like it was poison, “—something you want?”

I shook my head. “Not when it’s forced.”

He pulled a face, but didn’t respond. I stared him down, trying to force him to speak with an intense stare. He returned the look, looking insane as he did so: widening his eyes with a scowl andtwisting his head at a near impossible angle.

I needed to take my attention away from my eyes—they were tearing up and I was going to lose soon. Time to attack! “Are you just being nice for the relationship thing?”

His eyebrows furrowed, but his eyes still didn’t falter. “I can’t be awesome for my own personal reasons?”

“Oh! I know!” I snapped my fingers, ignoring his defence. I had been too engulfed in my own thoughts to pay attention of what he was asking of me. “I didn’t use you against Shikamaru, so now you’re playing nice because you want to be of use!”

“W-who would want to be of use to you?” He spat, face heating up, a different reaction than before.

I gasped and put my hands to my lips. “I’m right? Oh wow! Yes! Awesome! I’m right!” I bounced in excitement and that just made his mood worse. He was disgruntled, muttering that I needed to calm down, and when I refused to, he blasted me down on my bed with his signature wind. And he didn’t do it that hard either, not as hard as the first time we met and I hit walls and nearly broke limbs and bones. “Awww, you’re so gentle!” I cooed on purpose, and his face twitched.

“Yeah?” He heated up, lips dipping furiously and furrowed eyebrows nearly touching each other. “Well you’ve become rather submissive lately!” I felt a sting and frowned, wondering what he meant by such. I have been getting more active lately, so how could I be getting submissive? “When I first met you, you snapped at me and fought me and were really violent.” He mentioned to me, who was standing and dressed up completely, unlike I usually would. “Now you’re really girly and soft and you’re not as aggressive as usual.”

I sighed, crossing my arms. “It’s been a long week.” I still felt the need to prove him wrong though.I chose to pounce on him and teach him a lesson, but I couldn’t when I was so dressed up. My hair was done and I didn’t want to crumple my clothes. That’s when I realized that he was probably right, that I was starting to lose my edge. I sure hope the Clow Card from today could fix that.

There was a kick at the door and I opened it to let Shikamaru in, hands too occupied to open the door himself, holding a tray of food. I shook Naruto awake, recalled Deidara to his card and summoned him back out again instead of searching for him (a nifty trick I figured out by myself) and divided the food. We had a mini picnic in my room, on my bed (everyone loves the bed), and chatted mindlessly on random topics. We eventually brought up my safety, and I mentioned to them that I didn’t feel safe going to find the Clow Card alone, since Naruto would have to stay in hiding in my coat and couldn’t be of much help in an emergency. We eventually agreed that a Clow Card would have to stand in as a “date” for safety and they played Rock Paper Scissors to declare a winner, since I didn’t really mind which one I was with. It didn’t matter anyway, because I was the one with the pants in the relationship and they had no choice but to bend to my every insane and illogical demand.

Shikamaru won the battle either through luck or some sort of logical technique, and we were ready to set out. I ignored his complaint of the task being too troublesome and recalled the other two cards, tucking them in my small handbag with Naruto, who gave me a salute as he went.

“Just don’t leave my side and everything will go fine,” I chirped locking the door behind me, finally leaving the house. Shikamaru sighed, grudgingly agreed, and slowly trotted alongside my bouncing pace. It was great to finally be outside for once! Sure, school is technically outside, but having a day of freedom and exploring the city and discovering new things? Now that’s how to well spend such a bright and sunny day!

...not that I was going to do that, since I was heading to the aquarium, buuuuuuuuuuuut that didn’t mean I couldn’t do it along the way!

“Hello Sakura,” an elderly woman, one of my neighbours, greeted as we passed, a small cute smile on her cheeks, though her eyes looked stern as she swept the stray rocks and grass off her pathway, “you are lively today.”

“Ah, hello Chiyo,” I bowed in greeting, pausing by her driveway. She lived a few doors down the old for-sale-but-no-longer-for-sale-now-I-guess house past the winter cherry blossom road I adored. She was often seen outside of her hands, unable to handle staying in one place for too long, and instead watering and nourishing her plum trees. “Thank you, I’m just glad it’s a beautiful day!”

She tilted her face skywards, closing her eyes as she soaked in the warm rays. “You are right; it sure is nice, now that autumn is creeping around the corner.” She glanced down, squinting at the tired deer at my side. “And who’s this?” A sly smile crept on her lips at the question.

I blushed at what she was insinuating. “N-no one!Just a friend!” I backed up and stepped behind Shikamaru, pushing him forward faster. “But I almost forgot—we have to go! I’ll come visit again soon!”

“Have fun on your date!” She called back in her croaking voice, sounding more like an evil witch than a soft pushover granny. I knew her well enough, especially from my past experiences in the ninja world where I grew really fond of her and created a deep bond in such a short time, and a warm feeling enveloped my chest every time I spotted her. I almost wished this world was the real one, where magic existed and everyone was normal citizens with normal jobs and occupations and were _alive_. Returning to the ninja world after all of this would be heart wrenching, I can feel it in my soul.

“The Honoured Elder Chiyo.” Shikamaru muttered in front of me, at a sound level low enough so that only I could hear him. “The great sand elder and puppeteer, whom you fought alongside against Sasori of the Red Sand, and whom gave her life to resurrect Gaara.”

I smiled bitterly, hands automatically clutching the material of his shirt instead of pushing. We halted in the middle of the road, next to the Penguin slide. After a few more miles in my usual school direction, we would have turn into a road and catch the bus, and it would then carry us the rest of the long way to the aquarium. “I see you’ve been keeping track of all affairs between Konoha and Suna.”

“After the attack during the Chunnin exams, I felt it was needed.” He filled me in dully, adding a “it’s such a drag” to complete his sentence. “They only allowed it once I became a jonin.” He peered over his shoulder at me, who was staring blankly at the back of his black shirt. I’ve forced him to change into more stylish clothes (cough Kiba’s clothes cough) so that he could blend in with society better. Kiba only had dark articles of clothing though, and a bazillion pairs of jeans. I sincerely hope, for his sake, that he didn’t always wear the same shirt all the time. That would be disgusting. And unsanitary.

“I’m fine,” I let go of his shirt and instead moved to his side. I picked up the pace again, though it was slow. Shika wasn’t the fast type anyway, so we moved along comfortably. You could tell the pair of jeans he was wearing was also straining his movements. I was sure glad I personally opted for a dress instead of pants.

“With Gaara as Kazekage, I don’t think we have anything to worry about.” I wasn’t as cheerful as I should’ve been. I felt crestfallen and didn’t know how to cheer myself up. I glanced into the sky and tried to think of something to say. “Do you think Gaara will show up as a Clow Card?”

I glanced at Shikamaru. He opened his mouth to retort, unperturbed by my question, but the answer wasn’t his. The voice that did answer came from my other side, lower, and higher pitched. “Let’s see-ttebayo!

I glanced down at my handbag, the little fox head sticking out and grinning at me. Hope filled my heart. Did he remember? Did he know? “You know Gaara?”

He blinked, the name not ringing any bells. I sighed and realized that it was another person that I had to go through the trouble to describe to Naruto, even though if he were in his right mind, we wouldn’t be having such trouble. “Maybe?”

“Short spiky red hair, light eyes? He likes to battle and protect himself with sand?” I tried, and he nodded every so often. At the word sand, he brightened up, almost as if a little light of inspiration went off in his mind. “He’s kinda antisocial and doesn’t know how to make friends, but he’s pretty cool once you know him?”

We stopped at the bus sign and waited. Shikamaru dropped down on the bench and I was soon to follow.

Naruto flew out of my purse and jumped on my knees. “That sounds like the Sand!”

I beamed. Finally we could work with something! It made sense too—Gaara controlled sand, and there was a Clow Card for Sand! “Great!”

The bus creaked around the corner, whining as it slowed down in front of us. I tugged Naruto back in my bag before bouncing in up the stairs. I paid for both Shika and I’s ride, since Shikamaru didn’t have money in this world (the bus driver went “letting the woman pay? Tsk” and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes). I dragged our team to the very back (that was surprisingly empty) so that no one could see us and got comfortable. It would be a long ride before we finally arrived.

After five minutes of squinting through the window and trying to beat Shikamaru at “I spy”, ideas popped in my head and rummaged through my mental cabinets.

“I spy with my troublesome little eyes...” he started, eyes slowly dragging to look out the window. “...something that is—”

“OH!” I suddenly shrieked, slapping my hands together. It disturbed those around us, and Shikamaru too since I cut his victory short, but I wasn’t affected by it. I turned to him, brightly ecstatic, as if I had just won a thousand bucks. “You’re smart! This is something you should know!”

His eyebrows shot up as curiosity picked at him.  He mentioned with a hand to hurry up and continue with what I was bound to say.

“Why don’t you just tell me which ninjas are which Clow Cards?”

He didn’t even react, as if I had asked what the weather was outside, like I had always been clueless about all life. “Because I don’t know any of the Clow Cards. We’ve never met.”

My smile jumped right off my face. “Not even when you were created or sealed all together or something?”

He shook his head and closed his eyes. “None of that actually happened with us. We were just suddenly _there_ when you released us.”

Blast! Foiled again! There had to be an easier way to approach this situation and uncover all the secrets of the Clow Cards without lifting a finger! If I could figure out a way easier than using magic to slowly call them to me, then this Cardcaptors thing would be done in a snap. There had to be a faster way than waiting day by day. Why couldn’t I capture them in teams or groups? That would make everything much better. Uggh, I was starting to sound like Shikamaru and his need to not put effort into anything.

I bit the inside of my lip in thought, but I was quickly brought out of it when the bus squeaked to a stop in front of our destination. I had done too much thinking and I-Spy-ing that I had failed to notice how fast time had passed. We had arrived at the aquarium sooner than I had expected. We left the transportation device and made our way inside the building, where we paid and got to uncoverin’ secrets.

“Let’s start,” I hummed, standing on the tip of my toes so that I could look over people’s heads. There was much more people here now that it was the weekend, in comparison of during the day when we had our school trip. I groaned at the fact that this ten year old body of mine was being a huge hindrance and I was stuck being tiny.

“What are you looking for?” Came the question from the sixteen year old next to me.

I glared up at his blatant stupid tallness. “Let me ride on your shoulders and I’ll tell you.”

He slowly—very slowly!—turned down his head at me, blinking—yup you guessed it—slowly. Like I was an idiot, no less. “You’re not a kid.”

“Am so! I’m ten!” I whined, but I didn’t have to be told no to know that I had failed. Shikamaru was the lazy type, so he wouldn’t do it no matter what, plus, I realized now that I couldn’t command him as much in public. If he suddenly fell or jerked or reacted in some way that wasn’t natural, we’d stick out like sore thumbs and gain attention. We had to be as discreet as possible, so that our cover wasn’t blown. I couldn’t let people figure out I was a magical girl! That’d be insane! Who know what would happen? I would get totally Card blocked by insane people stalkers or whatever.

“The penguins,” I finally grumbled to my partner, swatting away my thoughts.

He nodded and I spotted him squinting through the crowd, much more efficiently than I was. I saw his eyes stall on something and knew instantly that he had found it. I grabbed his arm and tugged him in the direction his eyes pointed me towards. He groaned and his one free arm flailed but he didn’t stop me, letting me drag him along like an unhappy puppet. People cooed around us, looking down at me, probably thinking that it was a family trip and I was dragging my brother along. I held back a sigh. When was I going to get my own sixteen year old body back? It was unfair being compared to the much older people next to me. Maybe I should’ve picked Zaku—at least he was closer to my own age, even if he was such a butt. I mean that way we can be appreciated as people hanging out together and not family as if it this outing was obligated.

Not that I cared what they thought. I just thought it’d be better if they knew right from wrong.

Wait, why was I even focusing on that now? We had water tanks we needed to scope out!

We easily reached the penguin tank, but the water was calm. I tapped on the glass and made faces and even tried to talk to it, but I got no response. The penguins would wobble closer at my noises—and humans did the opposite, trying to get as far away as possible—and eventually I gave up, after a good twenty minutes of talking to the penguins and them tilting their heads at me in confusion.

I whipped my head up at Shikamaru. “I know! It attacked the penguins at the end of one of their shows! So that must be it! We just gotta wait for it after a show!”

“How troublesome...” He grumbled, just as I grabbed his arm and yet again dragged him around. I zigzagged through the tanks, looking for employee. I paused at one, asked, and they told me that at the top floor there was going to be a penguin show, near night time, but that there was a dolphin show at the water theatre out back, in about an hour or so. After a quick conversation with Shikamaru, we decided to get ourselves something to eat first before going there to pick the best seats in the house (just because we're here to find a Clow Card, doesn't mean we can't enjoy the show).

"You wait here." I held out a hand to Shika for him to wait, the other one digging in my bag for my wallet. "I'll go get the food."

"How troublesome." He grumbled before plucking my beautiful money holder from my hands. "You wait, I'll go." And he was gone before I could even argue.

Instead of waiting, I shuffled over and claimed the last remaining free table, that way we could relax as we ate. I leaned back and tried to look as awesome as possible while searching for suspicious activity. We were on the second level, at the food stands, where there was a giant jellyfish tank in the centre. And I say giant, because it was set up to go from the very bottom of first floor to the very top of the third floor. The stairs also worked around it. It was a great innovative idea from the aquarium.

"I can sense it, dattebayo!" Naruto whispered to me from my pocket. "It's near!"

Oho, so it was also a great hiding spot for the clow card.

Fortunately for me, my tablet was pressed up next to the glass, so I barely had to move in order to look at the jellies and possible evil power.

There was a sudden rhythmic tapping against the glass from an unknown source. When I looked around and tried to figure out who it was, the noise resounded again, this time sounding closer to my face and as if it was from the other side of the glass.

_Tap tap taptap tap._

Oh, I knew this knock! It was the most basic way of communication.

 _Tap tap,_ I replied with my own knocks.

The water in front of me shifted and swirled until finally it materialized. Icy white hair over fair skin and intense purple eyes. And were those... shark teeth? He was tall and somewhat built, but I'm sure that being a ninja had everything to do with that.

I recognized him immediately as the boy from those odd flashbacks I've been having. "Suigetsu."

"Sakura." He leered, eyes looking me up and down. "You've grown."

"I'm ten, you pervert." I huffed, crossing my arms. He rolled his eyes.

"Sakura!" Naruto called for my attention. I glanced down at my pocket, to him. He was pointing at Suigetsu as if he were a villain. "That's the Watery card! He's too strong for you to take on!"

At that, Sui's lips grew to a menacing grin. "Oh? Little Miss Cardcaptor doesn't have enough cards to fight me?"

"Sakura?" I heard Shikamaru's voice behind me.

Sui's face pressed against the glass, trying to get closer, to see further, eyes locked on the person behind me. "And you're here playing with them instead?"

I smacked my hand on the glass in front of his face. He barely even flinched. "We're not playing!"

He grew serious, dragging his face lower so that it hovered right in front of mine. "I'm gonna teach you a lesson of what happens when you’re not serious." He growled and his fists hit the glass.

A crack appeared.

A hand wrapped around my arm and tugged me back.

Water exploded all around me.

Glass splattered in all directions.

Screams echoed.

I stumbled back.

"Run!" Shikamaru yelled. My head snapped up and I saw him standing in front of me. His hands were set together, face contorted in major concentration. His shadow had extended into the water, trapping Suigetsu. The wild card was still on the other side of the glass, but his arms were up, as if he were conjuring water power with him. Shika's shadow halted him and most of the water under his control though, alleviating the water's pressure. He couldn't hold on though.

I looped my arm in his and started running.

"You need your chakra for later!" I explained quickly, when he tried to fight against me. But then the rest of the water from the jellyfish tank decided it was time to escape, since I had yanked Shikamaru away and he stopped blocking it. With a large wave I didn't think would touch me, I was submerged completely. It had taken me by surprise though, so I had no time to take a breath. Shika slipped from my grasp.

I tried swimming back to the top of the water, but something was holding me back. There was a sudden piercing pain at my food. I squinted through the water at my ankle. Wrapped around it was the same swirling water that the penguin coach had around her foot, dragging her and drowning her. But mine was bleeding. The blood was swirling in the water. I peered at the dancing liquids.

Glass.

Glass was mixed in the vortex, cutting at my skin.

Then Suigetsu materialized again, this time swimming towards me. In his hands though, was a blade I didn't notice he had. Long, heavy, with a few holes, there was no mistaking the blade. It was Zabuza's sword, the one that nearly chopped off my Team's heads off when we were in Mist, if it weren't for Kakashi-sensei saving our lives. Why in the world did this guy have his hands on it?

Though clearly that wasn't the right question to ask when he was charging right at me with said sword.

But, once more, he froze in place, arm held out for an easy swing to kill.

I glanced down. His shadow was stretched out again, connected to the side. The water around my foot stalled as well, so I pulled it free (though unfortunately, I got another cut from it) and swam up so that I could pull out my head and breathe. I saw Shikamaru to the side, holding the hand sign with extreme concentration as he held Sui in place. Hands wrapped around my arms and hauled me out of the water.

I glanced up and was met face to face with Ino and Kiba.

"What are you guys doing here?" I asked once I was set aside to dry on some stairs. Once seeing that I was fine, most of the crowd started to disperse. It was mostly kids that were left, trying to see in the water and find some jellies. I was fortunate enough to have not gotten stung. The water was slowly falling into the cracks and seeping into the lower level. I could hear screams and yells from below and tried not to snicker.

"To spy on your date!" Ino cooed, eyes glancing quickly to Shikamaru, who had hunched over with fatigue after releasing Watery. "Where did you find this guy?" She whispered to me, eyebrows wiggling.

I wanted to barf. "He's the Shadow Card."

She nearly swooned. "Wow hottie alert. Can't believe you own him." Her eyebrows were wiggling so furiously that I thought they were going to blast off her face and fly into the second dimension. Oh, and she was giggling too.

"Nothing's going to happen." I smacked her face.

She pouted. "I can dream." 

"You have a boyfriend!"

"I can dream!" She repeated strongly, this time with her full voice, and both guys turned to look at us with perched eyebrows.

"Dream of what?" Kiba had the guts to ask.

Target in sight.

Lock on.

"Your marriage." I answered smoothly. Ino shrieked in my ear and pounced on me, slapping her hands on my back and trying her hardest to beat me into a pulp. Too bad I was now SUPER SAKURA! The super heroine with super resistance that can totally withstand Ino’s puny super fists!

"Feel my wrath!" I bellowed as I flipped us over and grabbed my purse. I started to wring it over her face and water got squeezed out. Ino squirmed and flailed.

"Not the water!" She cried. "I'm melting! I'm meeelllttiinnggg!"And for a second there, because her make up was getting smudged, I definitely thought she had been melting for real. Whew, good thing I had common sense. Or is that good sense. Eh whatever. Potatoes gonna potate.

But wait a second there.

Melting?

Solid to liquid?

“Ino, you’re a genius!” I squealed when realization struck my brain like the iceberg to the titanic, dropping the sopping material so that I could shake her shoulders like a mad woman.

“I tryyyy!” She moaned, instantly dizzy from my constant shaking her. When I stopped, she clung onto Kiba for help. “Your sister is a maniac.” She whispered to him. He easily agreed with her.

“You just can’t appreciate your own genius!” I retorted, as if that made sense.

Shikamaru shuffled closer when Kiba wasn’t paying attention and was instead making Ino even more dizzy. Like brother like sister, I guess? Shika dug into one of his secret ninja pockets (how in the world had I not seen it before? Genjustsu?)and pulled out a roll of bandages. Without wasting much time, he had my leg wound up and tied and ready to go.

“Ino’s a genius?” He asked me quietly and skeptically.

I nodded. “Yeah, she made me realize something!”

Realize something indeed! We decided that since we had discovered the Clow Card, we should go home and avoid the scene of the crime for a while until it had settled down. We were forced to as well, because the aquarium had decide to close down for the day to clean up (glass, jelly fish, and water was everywhere so it was understandable), but we got a full refund (and me some free ice cream because I got hurt, though I gave the ice cream to Naruto as soon as I got home since we couldn’t get him ramen). After explaining to the rest of the Clow Cards what was going on though, we decided not to wait and to strike tonight, when the tank was still unfixed, that way Watery had one less place to hide.

With practiced ease, I easily snuck out (I was getting out of the house way too often at night lately) and met up with Ino. She had her people drive us near the Aquarium. Then she forced me into another one of her silly outfits. It was the waterproof design she had shown me before: a light blue bodysuit, with a white top over it that went into a spreading skirt. Attached to its ends were light pink palls. Along with the blue gloves and shoes, I even had to wear a jester hat over my long hair. It was a good thing the colours were pastel, that way they worked fine with my hair colour.

“Next time, I demand shorts.” I was blushing so hard I thought my face would blast off like a rocket.

“You need to be sexy!” Ino cooed, camera already out and filming.

“Do not!” I hissed, but the car was already gone with my normal clothes, so I had no choice but to move with this outfit. I felt like I was wearing a bathing suit. It was an odd feeling, since I wasn’t going to willingly jump in a pool. I was going to try to avoid water. Contradictions.

We snuck in the aquarium pretty easily. The guard was playing sports and eating food. He didn’t even notice when Naruto stole his ramen as we went past. I couldn’t scold him though. We had to be quiet. We had to be sneaky.

Before going too far I called out my wand and brought out Deidara. He reminded me that he could only be useful if he had his dragon out. I rolled my eyes, told him I already knew, and told him to quietly get ready at the food court. I had Naruto scope out where the emergency stairs lead. When he told me the results, I called out Shikamaru and Zaku as well. Though unhappy about it, I had Naruto lead them to their positions down the stairs. Ino was on standby at the top of the stairs, camera ready, claiming it was the perfect spot.

It felt weird only having Deidara to defend me. I felt naked without all my cards with me. But this was the plan. I couldn’t chicken out. This was it. It was capture time.

I climbed up the stairs, spotted Deidara nearby, and approached the temporary jellyfish tank they had set in place.

“Hey, Suigetsu!” I placed a hand to my mouth to make the sound echo. “We need to talk!”

“You sound like you want to break up with me.” The voice was very sudden and very close. It had me jolt in surprise. Before I could calm down and try to sense where he was coming from, my butt got slapped. I didn’t wait to calm down and instead reacted violently. I whipped my wand behind me and it came into contact with something hard. When I tried to pull it back, it got stuck though. I turned around and, low and behold, my wand was stuck in the man’s bare shoulder.

“Dei!” I called, because I knew my strength alone wasn’t enough. Not a second later, I heard the dragon’s roar before the clay came flying. It collided into the indifferent jelly person in front of me. It created enough time for me to rip out my wand and start running.

Naruto was right. Close combat was clearly not ideal.

“So you already have someone from the Akatsuki, eh?” Watery snickered, still not moving as his body regenerated on itself. “They must be totally weak!”

Deidara bristled.

“Don’t listen to him.” I told him as I climbed behind him onto his ready clay dragon. As soon as I was set, the wings started flapping and lifting us in the air. I pointed with my hand the direction we were going, making it obvious. As I thought, Suigetsu saw it and a smirk grew in his face. He tried to beat us to the top of the center stairs.

He reached the area first. His arm was growing and stretching in size. It reminded of me and the insane strength I could manipulate using my chakra. Either way, we weren’t getting close to that arm. He was getting ready to punch us out of the skies. I had Deidara throw bombs at him instead.

“To the stairs now!” I told Deidara, keeping an eye behind us as he pulled a quick U-turn that knocked over tables with the strength of the dragon’s wings. With the bombs exploding on him, Suigetsu was unmoving, waiting until his body was back into his top form before he noticed us. He gave chase. Either way, I understood. If a large or important part of him was damaged, he was stunned until the area could rebuild itself with water. It was creepy, but it was also awesome if I were to ever gain that skill (not that I could, since it’s a bloodline thing).

The doors to the stairs were too small. We were going to crash if we didn’t slow down.

Ino was nowhere in sight either. She had probably moved on.

“Do you trust me?” Deidara asked as he accelerated the clay, going for a nosedive.

“I don’t have a choice!” I managed to say through the extreme speed I was going through.

“Close enough.” He muttered before wrapping an arm around me. Both the dragon and him started glowing. I understood. I clutched my wand tighter and waited for impact. The edges of the dragon were starting to unravel into tendrils of energy. It tucked in his wings for a better fit.

Once we reached the door, half of the boy had dissolved and had wrapped around my wand, and instead of being a dragon, it was more as if we were a meteorite crashing into the poor unfortunate earth. It looked pitiful.

But there was no time for that! Watery was right behind us!

The stairs went down in a large square fashion. There was easily enough space between railings for something to fall through it right down. As soon as I noticed it, I didn’t even consider otherwise and jumped off the meteorite (that crashed into the wall right after) and down the stairs. I made sure to not land on the railings so that I could reach the bottom floor faster.

But there weren’t many to avoid.

This place was only three to four levels. My fall was going to end soon. I needed to do something or I’d land and break a bone!

I whipped my wand underneath me. The materializing wings had solidified enough for it to bring me to a sudden stop and have me hover instead. I looked up. I could see Suigetsu’s white hair at the top.

“That sword—that isn’t yours!—sucks!” I taunted.

There was a “what the hell!” and then the sound of water sloshing around. He had probably transformed into water again and was moving around that way. Either way, I couldn’t risk staying put. With a kick to the ground, I pushed forward and flew down the hall. There was a hand waving at me at the end, pointing me in the right direction. Ah, that had to be Ino!

Water suddenly splashed nearby. I held back a screech and swerved to avoid to the repercussion. A hand materialized from the water and tried to grab at me. I surprisingly successfully smacked it astray. But then it moved and slid across the floor. I was forced to fly higher. I even tried going in zigzags. The hands would appear at random, and I had barely enough time to react. Suigetsu was so arbitrary I was having a hard time avoiding! I couldn’t keep it up for too long!

It was a good thing I reached the corner. He smacked against the wall while I was perfectly fine with a square turn. It got him to slow down some. However, he quickly adapted, and on the next one, he shot ahead to hit against the wall. I had assumed he was being an idiot, but he was actually being smart about it. As soon as I went next to his puddle, the body surged up and the hand wrapped around my wand. I jerked to a stop, but the momentum was too much and I flew off my wand. The wings retracted to its normal size in his hand. I felt the pressure of the Fly card returning to me in my pocket.

Too bad for him, I had already reached my location. And I didn’t even have to force him back into his normal body. He had willingly turned back on his own.

“Shika!” At my call, from the wide space further down the hall, came a fast shadow. It reached mine as leverage and shot even further, catching Suigetsu before the other could register what was in action. I just had to make sure my shadow was constantly in the way, so that it helped Shika, just in case.

Suigetsu’s hand was forced open. I ran forward and snatched my wand back. I glanced back at Shika, but he shook his head at me. He didn’t have enough time to hold the Watery in order for me to capture him.

Since I knew there wasn’t time left to do much, I spun on my heel and whacked Suigetsu in the face with my wand. His face grew ticked. When I stuck out my tongue at him, he growled. I deemed I had irritated him enough and ran back, to where the rest of the team was waiting. I noticed the Shikamaru’s shadow retract from under my feet. I picked up the pace. He was freed again.

Water splattered on the wall to my left. It jumped to my right. It flopped at my feet. I could feel it on the back of my legs. He was chasing me. He was taunting me. He was playing with me.

How irritating! It made me want to call out Deidara and get him blasted again. But I couldn’t! I couldn’t summon while running! That was the biggest disadvantage I had!

There was a strong blast on my back. I was sent flying into the wide space that I had needed to reach. It stayed on me though, and I realized a second too late that Suigetsu was straddling my back.

“Now I’ll kill you right in front of your friends!” I looked over my shoulder at him (I couldn’t really move comfortably any other way in this position) and saw him pulling back his sword with a large arm. I glanced at the corners of the room that I could see. There was someone in each. I spotted Zaku and inclined my head slightly. The younger ninja nodded before running at us. Suigetsu ignored him, too focused on the kill. He brought the sword down on me. Zaku arrived behind him.

“The sword!” I told him. This made the Watery hesitate in his swing. Zaku slid his arm underneath the man easily, being smaller, and blasted a strong wind at the hands and blade. Zabuza’s sword was flung away and got lodged into the floor near the door.

Suigetsu clicked his tongue before melting instantly into a puddle. I quickly got up and put in some distance, but it was too fast. I tried pulling at the large sword but my arms had no strength for me to even be capable of holding it for a few seconds. My attempt only gave him time and he reached me easily.

He materialized behind me, so that he could hold a kunai to my neck. “Any last words?”

I didn’t even have to think about it. “Go to hell!” And I grabbed his wrist and pulled to flip him. He realized it though and made himself go back into his water mode. This, however, had him loose his kunai.

“Ino!” I dropped my wand, grabbed the weapon, and spun with a wide swing of my arm to attack. Ino pulled the large door open. Suigetsu stumbled back before I saw his body drooping. He was getting ready to puddle himself again. I tried another swipe but it went through. Yeah, I was right. “Windy!”

Zaku, who was waiting for my cue, flew forward. His fluid body was shimmering and changing and shifting with energy and pure wind. He was in his elemental form. It was mesmerizing. The wind picked up in the room, although we were inside. He pushed off even faster and tackled Suigetsu. He carried the Watery through the door. Ino slammed it shut.

Everyone in the room was holding their breaths, even Naruto, who was now eating ice cream (he must’ve snuck into the food court while I wasn’t looking).

I picked up my wand from the floor. We waited. Ino was glancing at her watch. She was keeping time. When ten minutes finally passed, we agreed that it was time to open the freezer again. We sighed in relief at what we saw.

An angry Suigetsu was fighting off something invisible, his body frozen while it was stretching and growing and shifting like Zaku’s had when they were with their element. But down here at the freezer there was barely any water for him to get his power and energy from. He was weaker here. And even more powerless when frozen. Zaku was standing next to him, looking smug and proud. I was going to have to treat my cards later for a job well done.

I held up my wand, chanted, and called him back into his card’s home. The ice was tugged to me and it still materialized into the small sparkling card I knew to love having around. Once his card was completed, I gladly received him as my new Clow Card. His card had faded sepia colours like the others. The words The Watery were written at the bottom like I expected. Similarly to the Windy, his eyes were closed and his hair was blue, blown back to show the scales on his forehead. His arms were neatly tucked over his chest and water was mystically swirling around is body, like fins.

“I’ll prove to you that I’m serious when it comes to Clow Cards!” I spoke to the card in my hands, determinedly holding a fist over my head.

So for the next few hours, we went home and played Uno until Suigetsu admitted I was the queen of all the things and bowed to my feet.

That was what being a Cardcaptor was entirely about.


	5. Rain

It was Sunday. Sunday was technically still the weekend. The precious precious weekend! A weekend to waste time and enjoy games!

“You need to find more Clow Cards.” Zaku grumbled from the couch.

“You need to shut your mouth.” I flipped the pancake I was working on into his face. He stiffened in surprise but didn’t complain. He was quick into consuming the yummy fluff. Food tended to keep people in their places. That’s right. I wasn’t dumb.

“No fair, dattebayo!” Naruto whined. He hovered closer to me and rubbed his cheeks against mine. “Did I ever mention that you’re the best Cardcaptor ever?”

I gave him a look, rolled my eyes, and gave him the next batch of pancakes. He squealed in delight and moved over to the table to slather his mountain of delicious with syrup.

“How does your dad not notice that we practically clean your fridge empty, yeah?” Deidara asked after swatting Naruto away from his face. The tiny fox growled so threateningly that it scared the ants that were thinking of invading the house. Served them right for planning to live in my home. We already had enough people secretly living in here as it was, thankyouverymuch.

“Because I do all the grocery shopping and dad’s never here to notice.” I handed the next pile of pancakes to Shikamaru, who was yawning into his palm as he came down the stairs. He was the last to wake up this morning. Last night was chaos trying to figure out who would sleep in the bed. Shikamaru gracefully bowed out as long as he could have it once everyone was awake and gone. I didn’t mind it, since it was the weekend and I was staying home. I needed to figure out why these guys were so obsessed with sleeping in my bed. I considered asking Jiraya to upgrade my bed into bunkbeds, since there was going to be so many other cards that were going to come into the picture soon. I needed to think ahead. Or maybe I could get them to sleep in Jiraya’s bed when he wasn’t here. That would save money. And explanations as to why I needed more sleeping space.

I shoved the thought to the back of my mind and looked around the room. Where was that latest card of mine? “Suigetsu? Where are you? Do you want breakfast?”

“He’s in the bathroom.” Shikamaru told me before stuffing his mouth with food.

“Thanks!” I hoped up the stairs, found the designated door, and knocked. I was balancing the plate of pancakes in one hand like a pro. I needed to think about getting into the waitressing business when my body was old enough. “Sui! Breakfast!”

I saw the water slither from under the door. “Don’t call me Sui.” The sound of his voice was low and tired, and it came from behind me again. The plate was lifted from my hands and was taken out of sight. “Thanks for the food.”

I turned around and stifled a gasp at the half naked body in front of me. I kept my eyes expertly away from his torso, even if I could feel my face turn red. I was too innocent for this. My tiny body wasn’t ready!

He paused in taking a bite and raised his eyebrows. “What? Never seen a guy before?”

Well dang, he was another one that needed his ass kicked into the next century.

“And by the way—” One of his hands slammed on the door next to me, caging me in. I didn’t dare flinch and instead stared him down. “—just because you caught me, doesn’t mean I’ll obey you.”

Why does it feel like I’ve heard this before?

“And yesterday was a fluke.” He leaned closer. “Release me and I’ll be sure to slowly chop off your arms and legs one by one—” A sick smile was on his smile as he went on. He was enjoying this too much. If we were in an anime, there would be a dark glow under his face and his eyes would be flashing. Too bad this was reality and he only looked as if he needed to be put in jail. “—and I’ll have fun cutting you up into tiny little pieces of human soup. And finally when you’re begging for me to stop, I won’t because I’m nice and—”

I got tired with his rambling. He just wanted to scare me and it wasn’t working. “Watery.” He stiffened at the sound of his name leaving my lips with such authority. His voice died in his throat. “Sit. And don’t drop the pancakes.” His body collapsed on itself so that he was down on his knees and his breakfast was held perfectly in the air so that it wasn’t knocked over with the sudden gravity pull. He glared up at me. I gave him a look. “I think you forgot who’s in control here.”

“As long as I resist, you won’t be able to use us properly.” He smirked. I scowled at the truth within his words. He was good. “That’s right, I know all about the whole “good relationship” thing you need to have from us. As long as some of us keep resisting, you won’t be able to use much of your magic and you’ll be a completely useless Cardcaptor!”

Dang it, this guy was right. If we didn’t get along like a good little family, then it would be strenuous for both the cards and me to use magic. I guess I had to lay down the deal with this guy. “The faster you help me, the faster we get out of this world and the faster you’ll no longer be a Clow Card.”

“How do you know we’re in another world?” His eyebrows shot up. He lowered his arms so he could take a bite of my pancakes. Stubborn or not, I made some darn good food. (Just with pancakes though, I sucked at any other food.) “We could have been living in this collective illusion thing and no one would be the wiser.”

That sounded oddly familiar. But no, that wasn’t possible. It would take something big and powerful to give every one of us the same illusion. I didn’t know how many ninjas I needed to capture, but it was way more than what a normal genjutsu could accomplish. “Just think about it clearly. There’s no way that’s possible.”

He shrugged. “It’s a possibility. Either way, until we have proof about whatever’s going on here, I won’t trust you.” He paused and looked away in thought.

I knew what that meant. “You thought of a way for me to gain your trust.”

I waited an answer, but my words’ control over him stopped. With a sigh, he stood up again. “Wow, you’re weak.”

“Just wait until I get my chakra back.” I cracked my knuckles threateningly. “Then you’ll see how truly weak I am.”

He turned away. “You won’t be able to do what I want with such weakness.”

“Bring it. Tell me what you want. I can do it.”

He looked over his shoulder at me, a grin on his lips. He didn’t say a word though. He turned and advanced on me. His name was on the tip of my tongue, ready to use it as necessary. His look was intense, begging me to read his every move and word.

And then he shoved me aside so that he could lock himself in the bathroom.

“Sui?” I asked and knocked on the door. I didn’t get an answer. He wanted me to work for whatever he had in mind. How demanding of him. I let out a breath and went back downstairs. No matter what he said about defying me, he had still brought the pancakes with him. He was somewhat appreciative of me, so his rebelling thing had to be just a phase. He had given me a chance, after all. I just had to wait for his word. He would grow out of it after some time. I just knew it.

And now I sounded like a mother.

DO YOUR CHORES! CLEAN YOUR ROOM! GET OFF MY LAWN!

Yup, that sounded about right.

I slammed my hands on my hips once I reached the kitchen table. “Alright crew! It’s time to get crackin’! Let’s play games until we drop!” Naruto and Deidara pumped a fist in the air along with me.

“Sakura, you have chores to do.” Shikamaru decided to be the bearer of bad news as he pointed to the annoying white board that held all the house duties. Kiba had done all of his duties during the week so that he had the weekend off to do whatever he wanted. He was smart. I wasn’t.

I didn’t glance back, since I knew that Shikamaru wasn’t much of a liar. “Then we’re gonna work together to get them all done so that _then_ we can play to our hearts content!”

“Yeah!” The blond boys echoed.

We got a plan in motion. Suigetsu was naturally kept out of it since he refused to get along. The rest were fine helping me out. I put Zaku on dusting and sweeping duty, since his Windy qualities could help him out with that. I put Shikamaru in the basement to sort out the library and put things in order, since his intelligent mind would totally be more into that (hopefully he wouldn’t fall asleep or get distracted reading). Naruto was on trash duty, since all he had to do was tie the bags and carry them around. Deidara was in laundry and I myself finally went with bathroom duty. Suigetsu would have originally been the one to do it since he was more affiliated with water, but it was fine.

I just needed to figure out how to get in the bathroom now. Even if I simply called him back, he had locked the door. I needed him to unlock it so I could go in, _and then_ I could call him back. Until then, I was stuck out here and he was stuck in there. It was a hard predicament.

“Sui, I need to use the bathroom!” I lied with 0% convincibility and effort.

“Use the bathroom downstairs!”

“But my stuff is in this one!”

“Like I care!”

“Just let me in! I won’t bother you!”

“Yeah right! You’re already bothering me!”

“I won’t talk to you for the rest of the day if you let me in!”

“Liar!”

“Come on, I really have to pee!”

“You’re annoying!”

“No you’re annoying!”

“Says the one who won’t shut up!”

“Says the one who won’t let the others pee!” It took me a while, but something dinged in my mind and I had a hallelujah moment. “Is getting you out of the bathroom what I’m supposed to do to gain your trust?”

“How in the world did you get that idea?”

“Well you really don’t want to leave the bathroom!”

“Well it has nothing to do with it!”

“What do you want me to do then?”

Silence greeted me.

“Do you even know?”

“Of course I do!” He hissed, then calmed down. “But I’m not going to rely on you.”

“Dude, rely on me.” I sat on the ground and leaned against the bathroom door. It was better than standing. “I want to help you guys somehow, since you’re always helping me out. You know, catching other cards, chores, hanging out with me, stuff like that.”

A loud voice called from downstairs. “WILL YOU HELP ME BLOW UP STUFF, YEAH?”

Dude, way to ruin the mood. “NO WAY, DEIDEI!”

“DISCRIMINATION, YEAH!”

“WANTING TO KEEP THE WORLD INTACT IS DISCRIMINATION HOW?”

“ON PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO BLOW UP STUFF!”

“Give me a second.” I told to the bathroom door before getting up and going to the lower level bathroom. This washroom held the clothes washer and dryers, which was why Deidara was annoyingly able to eavesdrop. I found him on the floor, half under a pile of clothes and half clawing his way out. My eyebrows rose, impressed. It wasn’t every day you saw clothes trying to consume its wearer. “Have you ever done laundry before?”

“Yeah, but I don’t understand these things!” He waved an unburied arm to the two machines for washing and drying.

“You understand television and video games, but you don’t understand this?” The blond stereotype was strong in this one. I sighed, pulled him out from under the attacking garments, and then explained everything to him a few times before he finally understood that yes, dividing clothes by white blacks and colours was important. He was pouting and grumbling the entire time too. I felt a pang of guilt for always cutting him off from his blowing everything up craze. Couldn’t there be some sort of happy medium where he could blow up things within a safe environment?

A put a hand to my chin in thought. Fireworks were the cliché option, though I had a feeling that he’d be unsatisfied unless he made them himself. Maybe he could make a sand castle? Or origami? Blowing up paper didn’t seem so bad. The worst thing that could happen would be a massive papercut. Sand would just get in people’s eyes and make them wonder why in the world they chose to go to the beach at the same time as a mad bomber.

“What’s up, yeah?” Deidei asked once he noticed I was frozen in thought and making faces to myself. “What are you thinking about?”

“How to make you happy.” I had it so nonchalantly that I swear his face got red.

“How about you let me blow up stuff?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“Uh no.” I pulled a face and instead decided to ask him. “In the past, how did you handle your need to blow up things without actually destroying things?”

“I didn’t, yeah. I’m a rogue nin for a reason.”

Ah, of course. Stupid me. He could do whatever he wanted and kill whoever he wanted to, so there was no need for him to restrain himself with anything. This instead must’ve been a frustrating change for him.

“Sakura!” Naruto came flying in at top speed, only stopping once he collided with my face. “We’ve got a problem!”

“What is it?” I peeled him off.

He waved his paws about. “The Rain card is in the basement!”

“Rain?” I tilted my head. “But I already have Watery.” And he was still in the bathroom upstairs sulking like a child.

“It’s a different card!” He tugged on my shirt. “Let’s go catch it before it floods us in!”

I followed obediently, and Deidei as well but rather with curiosity. Naruto led us back to the basement, and I recognized the shelves where I had found the Clow book. I tried to supress the flashbacks of meeting that jerk Zaku. Glancing further down, I saw the issue, there was a light rain coming from the back of the room, slowly coming our way.

“Hey…” I realized as I glanced at Deidei, who had an oddly pensive look on his face, “…isn’t Shika supposed to be down here?” Naruto shrugged. Deidara didn’t answer. “Boys.” I scoffed before moving forward to find him myself. I found him in a corner with some really old books about psychology. He was on the floor, leaning against the wall, eyes closed and resting, and there was a random book in his lap. I poked him and he slowly opened his eyes to look at me.

“It’s raining.” I told him without explanation.

He nodded, all philosophical-like, as if he already knew. “You’re going to need Suigetsu.”

“I can do this without his help.” I huffed. “Come on!” I grabbed his arm and pulled him along. I found Naruto again, since he was hovering nearby. He was looking towards the denser part of the rain. “Where’s Dei?”

“He went ahead, believe it!” Naruto pointed to the rain. I nodded. We rushed forward into the water. However, as soon as our bodies got hit by rain, it shied away. I kid you not. It was like the cloud that was causing this situation backed up. It was like it didn’t want us to get near it. It was like it had performance anxiety. Eventually though, as we ran towards the denser part of it, it stopped trying to move away from us. I assumed it was because it was stuck in a corner of the room. As we went, the rain got denser and denser and it was hard to see. We sprinted for the final push towards the revealing corner.

I turned it.

And the rain stopped completely.

Before me stood Deidara and a hole in the wall. It was quite obvious what had happened.

“You let it escape?” I gaped at the blond idiot. “Are you kidding me?”

He turned towards me, no expression of guilt on his face like he desperately needed to wear. He looked solemn, something weighing on his mind deeply. Too bad I no longer cared. He had royally messed up! I returned him to his card form and he didn’t even argue. He knew what he had done. And this wasn’t just because of some silly whim of wanting to blow up something for the sake of blowing up something. He had helped this Clow Card escape. Therefore, the only conclusion was that it must be someone that he knew. Another Akatsuki member, perhaps?

“I guess you’re right, Shika.” I turned away from the huge hole in the wall. That alone was going to be a tough time trying to cover up. Should I get a giant blanket? A giant bandaid? (Did those even exist?) Oh man, father was going to be asking a million questions when he returned from his weird book signing. How was I supposed to fix this? “We need to convince that idiot out of the bathroom.”

So we went over and tried our best. There was a good ol’ half an hour of begging, commands failing, and snarky retorts. Finally, I made the decision to do what I had to do: I snuck in through the tiny window.

“What in the—!” Sui, who was leisurely reading a book in the bathtub, jerked up when he saw me. The water in the tub splashed about, and he was still shirtless, but I wondered why in the world he was still wearing pants while he was in water. Did he not know how to take off his clothes? Did he need help? Was he trying to make himself cold? Just what was up with him?

But that wasn’t important anymore! It was his own problem if he wanted to look like he peed his pants! I had to focus!

“You’re coming with me.” I demanded with an epic pose that included me pointing at him.

I saw the shiver go through his spine before his face set into a look of determination. I pulled out my Clow key, fully determined to have to call him back. He lunged for it though, before I had a chance to utter a word. I sidestepped to dodge but my foot landed on water. My balance was lost. The room spun. There was a sharp pain on the back of my head. The world went fuzzy. Suigetsu was coming towards me. There was a stupid look on his face. I held up a hand, wanting him away. No! The ringing from the cards blared in my ears. I think it was Deidei. I closed my eyes and blacked out.

* * *

“Goodness, I’m fine.” Zaku had glanced over for the millionth time. It was getting on my nerves. “You’re supposed to hate me, remember?” He twisted his expression with hate, but with worry also in there, it rather turned into a grimace than a glare. I rolled my eyes and pulled the last clasp of my roller blades to snap it closed. He returned to his card form without my having to ask him. My cards were way more obedient now that I had an injury on me. And it was such a silly event too. Even Suigetsu started behaving! And he had threatened to kill me earlier! The boy really needed to make up his mind. Mhm. All of them did. But I wasn’t complaining, no siree! It was pretty fun having them act like I was the queen of the world that was as fragile as glass (I pretty much was in this tiny body).

“Bye Naruto!” I called over my shoulder and into my house as I went off. Naruto stared back grumpily from the window, wishing he were with me instead of doing chores. I skated around until I could find a hint of the Rain card. Unfortunately, the rain must have been light because the area had already dried up so quickly. The plants, however, have not soaked up all of the water just yet. There were still drops on the petals. I tried to follow those tracks but they barely led me anywhere. I was ready to give up, passing Penguin Park for the millionth time, when I spotted it. The rain was secluded up by the park nearby. I had a hard time seeing the rain because it was hidden by the trees, but I luckily managed to spot it. Unfortunately, my skates no longer worked in the forest, so I was forced to swap back into my shoes. I trekked in, getting weary of the soon-to-be rain. I couldn’t let myself get caught in it because I knew it would run away. Maybe this was what Shikamaru meant that I would need Suigetsu for? I pulled out my wand and decided to try it out.

“Yes?” As soon as Sui’s eyes landed on me, he glanced away. He was probably thinking about what had happened in the bathroom. I was over it. He clearly wasn’t.

“This rain—” I pointed down the path to where there was a light rain covering most of the forest. “—would you be able to redirect it away from my body so that the Rain card doesn’t notice my presence and tries to run away?”

His eyebrow twitched. “You want to use me as an umbrella.”

“Kinda. Yes.”

He groaned.

I snickered.

He glared.

I crossed my arms and gave him a smirk.

He rolled his eyes and did as was asked. He morphed into his form that was made of pure water. He circled above my head, spinning steadily, until he stretched out into a semi bubble around me. I walked forward, taking a tentative step into the rain. I watched it through Sui’s umbrella form. They landed on him and slid down, harmlessly, into the grass. I turned my eyes to the rain in general. It didn’t shift, nor did it show signs of running away. I was safe this way. Yes!

“Walk slowly,” Sui’s face appeared in his water in front of me. I flinched and nearly screamed at how suddenly he had showed up.

“What? Why? Isn’t it better to make this end quickly?” I twirled my wand and took a ready stance as demonstration.

“Dummy. He’ll know it’s you if he can tell that you’re running really fast towards him.”

“Oh!” It clicked. “If I walk slowly, he’ll think I’m a just a normal pedestrian or something.” His face disappeared back into the water. I must have been correct.

And so the walk continued on. I searched the trees low and far and the rain got denser and Sui got grumpier but there was still no sign of the Clow card I was looking for. Just when I thought I was going to have to give up because I couldn’t find even a hint of what could be the thing, Deidara ringed. I knew I shouldn’t really trust him after he let the card escape in the first place, but I was getting desperate. At the most, if Deidara helped him escape, I could watch them go and try to keep track of its body rather than just the vague rain. So yeah, I released him, and Sui complained because he had to stretch his form to fit us both.

“I can get him to appear, yeah.” Deidei explained. His look from earlier hasn’t changed though, so I couldn’t really be sure if I trusted his word. However, it was also because that he helped out the Rain card that it was also useful to have him help. They knew each other and could talk out maybe a solution instead of having Dei help him again.

I nodded that it was okay. He walked out of the protection of the rain umbrella. I pretended to keep walking along the path as he moved towards the bushes. I heard Dei go through them, then patrol a bit. He was getting further and further away from me and I had no idea how to naturally make myself turn around to keep track of Dei. I stopped moving though, in hopes that that was good enough. Turns out it was, because I heard his start a conversation with someone.

“I know that she’s here.” There was an unknown voice talking.

“She’s not a bad master.” Deidara spoke next. He forgot to mention how super awesome I was. I was going to have to scold him about that later.

“I must first achieve my goal.” Even trying to peek around the trees to see them didn’t work. I could only rely on my ears. “I cannot allow my freedom to be seized.”

“Sakura may be willing to accompany you with your goal.”

“Do not speak of her so formally.” Wow, he was oddly strict. “I understand that you’re here to lure me out for your master. I would hope that as a member of the Akatsuki you would continue to assist me in my pursuit.”

I saw Deidara hesitate. I chose this moment to interfere. I knew that running in would be foolish and careless because they would simply run away like last time. I figured that since the Watery was very good at negating the weird sensing powers in the rain, that it could also help capture it.

I twirled my wand and pointed forward. “Watery, encage the Rain card!”

As obedient as ever, Suigetsu flowed forward in his water form. I saw Deidara jerk and I felt the rain shift in pressure to a stronger form, but I was determined not to fail. Sui didn’t back down either and usurped the strong rain to strengthen himself. He disappeared in the trees. I ran forward to continue watching the event unfold. Sui had wrapped himself around the Rain card, another Akatsuki cloak wearer with straight red hair that covered a pale and sickly-seeming face. Both of these water-type cards seemed to battle it out in an epic battle of wits (which also looked a bit like a bitch slapping contest). However, Suigetsu won when Deidara decided to tackle the other man down. Even I was surprised when it happened. Deidara, taking down a member of his own secret cult? What has the world come to?

I didn’t even get the chance to snap out of it when Suigetsu successfully created his water cage around the two of them.

“I am sorry it has come to this.” The Rain turned to look at me. “You must be Miss Sakura.”

“Hello.” I awkwardly greeted. “It is I, Sakura.”

“Nagato.” He introduced himself with a nod. “Take care of me well.”

I nodded, prepared myself, and captured him. He didn’t even struggle as he was recreated into his card. He appeared on it, like I expected him to, with his figure pointing to the side, but with his eyes closed and with rain drizzling around his figure. It looked soothing. Because I had forced all three together to be card-ed, the other two, already mine, returned to my hands as well, like they were waiting their turns. I was tempted to release them all so that we could continue the conversation from earlier but thought against it. I needed to get home and sign the card as soon as possible before he decides to free himself and make a run for it again. I pocketed them away and decided to stick with that idea. It was the smartest bet.  

Mid way through going home though, my cell phone (technically an old one that Ino gave me) received a call.

“Hello?”

“Forehead!” Of course it was Ino. Who else would it be at this time of day? Plus, she was the only one out of three people (the other two being my dad and my brother) who knew this number. Oh wait, maybe I should have Naruto learn it too, since he was always home and I may need to contact him in the future if Clow cards appear.

“Pig!”

“You captured a Clow card, didn’t you?”

“What? How did you know?”

“I saw the suspicious moving rain! I’m not dumb! How dare you capture it without me?”

“There was kind of an accident!”

“Yeah, an accident on your memory to come call me!”

“Weren’t you on a date with my brother anyway?!”

“….noooooo.”

“Yes you were.”

“Oh shut up!”

“You stop dating him.”

“Ew no. Are you retarded?”

“You’re the one that’s retarded since you’re dating him of all things.”

“Tch. Whatever.”

I won! Heck yeah! How many dates were those two going to go on, anyway? It was gross. I couldn’t stand it. Nor understand it. Seriously. In what world were we in for my older brother to have an interest for someone way too young and stupid for him? For real.

“So what card was it?”

“The Rain.”

“A form of Watery?”

“Something like that, but their own card. I don’t get it either.”

I could practically hear her shrug. “This is all because I wasn’t there.”

“Yes, the Clow card decided to also be water because you weren’t there.”

“Now you’re talking my language!”

“…sure.”

Eventually, after a bit of conversation on the road back home, Ino finally revealed her purpose: “You suck.”

“Wow thanks.”

“You’re welcome, giant forehead.”

“Of course, stupid pig.”

Friendship was weird.

I made it home safely and signed the card. Finally, I released Nagato and decided to meet him for the first time.

“Hello, I’m your master, Sakura.” I started, a bit awkward but that was always how it seemed to go. I was going to get far better at it, I swear. I was going to have to do this type of things a bazillion more times since I was going to have to get a bazillion more cards.

“I am Nagato, the leader of the Akatsuki.” He bowed his head in a tiny of nod.

That information was new to me. “Leader of the Akatsuki.” I whispered to myself in awe. I had to keep that in my memory bank. This guy knew leadership. I had much to learn about this guy. Maybe he could teach me how to be a cool but strict leader that everyone loved and obeyed and fed grapes to. “What is your purpose as the Akatsuki?”

“As well, what is yours as a shinobi? We are all in the same, even you and I, although we conflict much. I believe you already know the answer to what you seek.”

Oh my, he was trying to talk me in circles. Well played. I, however, had to figure out how to use this brain of mine and quick. I may not have easy and clever responses with the appropriate timing. I hated that moment when I would think of the perfect comeback only a few days afterwards. It was not my fault that my mind would take forever to load innovative things to say. I wasn’t exactly a stand-up comedian or anything. I wasn’t Naruto! I was a fine young lady who was just a tad too easy to confuse.

“Do you mind sharing your purpose anyway?”

“In due time, cherry blossom.” Suddenly, there was a light drizzle of rain surrounding him. I bit the inside of my cheek to resist scolding him. We were in my room. That was my floor he was soaking up. Where in the world did he think that such a thing would be acceptable?

He followed my glance up to the rain. “Apologies.” He said and the water stopped.

That’s right! You better chill! Don’t make me call your mother or whatever! (Did grown men still get scolded by their mothers…? I was going to have to ask Deidara about this later.)

“As Deidara has informed me, you are searching for the other cards as well. Correct?”

“I am.” I nodded, wondering at what angle he was trying to get at.

“Then it would be most beneficial to both of us if you joined our cause.”

“’Our’?”

“The Akatsuki’s.”

“Seeing as how Fly—I mean Deidara—knocked you down earlier, I don’t think he’s on board with your plan.”

“I have no qualms towards him. He has acted on his personal beliefs, but in no way does this deter him from our goal.” He placed an elbow on his knee and stared at me squarely. “So what do you think, Cardcaptor? Will you join us and our league of epic nail polish professionals?”

I glanced down at my tarnished nails and then to his spiffy dark red ones. They sure knew how to make an offer appealing, especially since I had no idea what the original plan was in the first place. I just knew that he was fancy and that my nails could be fixed. It sounded pretty good so far. “But I need to know what this goal of yours is.”

“We are an assembling team searching independence from a force beyond our control.”

I scrunched up my face into my thinking mode. He was talking about getting freedom from something he couldn’t control. “Are you talking about me?”

“SAKURA, WHERE’S MY RAMEN?” Naruto hollered from downstairs.

“MICROWAVE!” I yelled back, ignoring the fact that this cut into the intense conversation.

“I CAN’T OPEN IT!”

“USE YOUR HEAD!”

There was a sound of a collision. I think he quite literally used his head for that. Wow. This is was I get for leaving him behind to babysit the house. He can’t even open the microwave himself. I needed to rethink this “leaving him in charge” thing.

“Think bigger.” Nagato cut back into my thoughts and spread out his arms, mentioning to himself, to me, and to everything all at once. “We want liberty from the very things that binds us.” He paused. If we had been in a movie or a show of sorts, I swear this was the right moment for the camera to zoom in on his face. “Freedom from Clow Reed.”


	6. Wood

When I woke up (ignoring the fact that I was covered in bodies that clearly hated being awake as much as I) there was a bad feeling in the air. The feeling was familiar—it was similar to when I'd feel bloated—but instead of being about my personal system, it felt rather like the air was bloated. Not as if the air was going to poop or anything. But it was heavy, eerie, as if this were a cloudy day where we waited for it to rain but instead it stayed in the sky, dangling in our faces so temptingly close and refusing to satisfy our need for relief. It was difficult to explain.

When I peeled Naruto away from my face, nudged Deidara so he'd roll on the ground, and kicked off my blankets (and Zaku), I spotted Pain—er wait, Nagato?—at the window. He was cloaked in the darkness of his Akatsuki cloak so it took me a while to decipher his figure.

"Something wrong?" He didn't even turn to me when I spoke. I had no idea if my voice had even reached his ears.

The only confirmation was when he replied: "It's raining."

The Rain card noticed the weather. Huh. Why did that feel so odd and eerie? He was Rain, so why wouldn't he notice that it was raining? However, it rather felt... wrong. It was as if it was something he wasn't supposed to pay attention to. It was like he noticed an obvious flaw and I was missing it when it was right in my face.

"It is not my rain." He explained without having to turn to me. He knew I was confused and concerned with where he was coming from. He knew that I thought it was normal rain. "And yet it reeks of Clow."

"Is there more than one rain card?"

Finally, his face tilted to look back at me. Unfortunately, it was to give me a look of utter disdain.

"Nevermind." I squeaked when I saw it. I really didn't like receiving that look. Just. Wow. It sucked. I felt guilty for saying anything. You know that expression: "there are no stupid questions" and then the hidden follow-up of: "just stupid people"? Yeah, I was being one of those people right now. The stupidest of the stupid. Like Ino ("Hey!" I could imagine her snap).

Eventually though, I couldn't stand the awkward silence and had to speak again. "So there's a Clow Card making this rain, or doing something relatively close to it, so we just got to go and find it." I didn't really want to wake up and get out of bed though. I pulled the blankets back towards me (and away from the boys) and wrapped myself up again. The Rain didn't answer and turned back towards the window and gazing at the droplets. I figured I was safe and tried to lull myself back into a long comfortable sleep.

"Sakura! Hurry down here or you'll be late for school!" The fiend, Kiba, yelled from below.

"Aw man..." I grudgingly kicked off the blankets again. I stepped on Deidara, who barely even budged, as I made my way over to my closet. Once I had my clothes for the day, I kicked Suigetsu out of the bathroom to change and then brought my bag (and Naruto) with me downstairs for breakfast.

"Took you long enough," Kiba laughed as he took the last bite of his food at the exact same time I sat down. He himself got up, put away his dishes, and made for the door. "Better hurry up if the monster doesn't want to be late!" And then he was gone. I hadn't even had time to take my first bite and he had already abandoned me! Jerks—the lot of them!

I glanced behind me and saw Jiraya, reading the newspaper and looking totally calm. It totally wasn't like him. At all. And then he giggled and blushed and I realized that he was probably just looking for hot girls in the newspaper. Yep. Not going to care about him anymore. I quickly finished my food and got out of there. "Bye, pervert!"

As soon as I walked around the block (I'm walking today because it's raining and I can't really hold an umbrella efficiently when I'm skating), I felt the Clow cards return to me in their card forms with groggy and angry (Sui) mental beeps. I mentally sent them a winky face emoji sticking out its tongue but they aren't able to receive my own messages. So I was basically just sending that emoji to myself. Not that there's anything wrong with that—the winky face emoji that's sticking its tongue out is pretty cute! It's just that there's no one but me to appreciate it. Maybe I should get my Clow Cards some cell phones to spam them that emoji with. Yes. I like that idea.

"Good morning, forehead!" Ino greeted me as usual. "You look uglier than usual this morning!"

"Pig." I dismissed as I swapped my shoes. "We have a job to do."

"What's up?"

"My Clow Cards detected something funny with the rain so we gotta figure out what's going on."

"Rain again? Didn't you already catch it?" She was stalling next to me by reapplying her makeup for the third time.

"That's what I'm saying!" I tossed my arms in the air and nearly smacked her prissy little nose. "Either way, something's acting up and we gotta go figure out what."

"I'm going to be completely ready this time." She closed her pack and placed her hands on her hips. "No more cards are going to be captured without getting spotted on my camera! I'm going to make you a super star!"

I gave her a long look. Her eyes were sparkling. Oh god. She couldn't be serious?

"With my outfits and your super hot moves, you're going to take the world by storm!"

Yep. She was. "Ino. You can't tell anyone about this."

Her jaw dropped. "Come on! You're a real life magical girl! Imagine how popular you'd become!"

I shoved her. "Come on, pig., I already have enough friends."

"We should tell Kiba!" She was jumping and tugging on my arm.

"Especially not him!" I whined, shutting my locker. "He'll just torment me more." Brothers are brothers after all.

"Or he'll help!"

"Or he'll just be a jerk."

She paused. "...yeah." But she quickly picked up her mood. "But you could make a job out of this! And me too as your stylist! Come on!" Oh course she'd be a part of it.

"We don't know how many cards are out there? Could be one? A million?" I tossed that back at her. "If there's only like ten then there's no need to make a big deal about this thing."

"Actually," Naruto chose this perfect time to pop his head out, "as the guardian of the Clow Cards—"

"You're doing a horrible job!" Ino coughed into her fist.

Naruto hissed at her. "—I can safely say that there's 52 cards in existence! Believe it!"

"Holy crap!"

"Yeah!"

The bell rang. Naruto quickly hid back into my bag as we travelled to class.

"I'm just saying," Ino whispered in my ear as we went through the door, "we can totally stretch out those 52 cards and make a thing with this. Think about it!"

"No way! Heroes work in secrecy!"

Of course, the whole day passed with her pestering me. She kept begging me and begging me to become like Supergirl and become the "face of our city" and other weird crap like that. It was, honestly, really hard to say no. Everything she said started to sound better and better. With the public in know about these magical cards, they could help us pinpoint where the cards are at. But, if Naruto was right, then the cards wouldn't just show up anywhere—they would show up near me. Is that really a reason to get randoms involved? The backlash might get really intense and they might start to blame me for everything here. I mean, I opened the Clow book so it was entirely my fault the cards are everywhere. Maybe they would even throw me in jail! No! Not the jail! I'm not ready to pee in a bucket! Maybe they'll tax me for all the damages the city receives! Man I ain't got money! I don't even have a job! I'm ten years old! Not even my allowance can cover that!

Wait. No. Think about the positives! I would become a celebrity. I would get fans. I could inspire a revolution. I could get help from civilians. I would no longer need to hide my identity.  I could stop going to school. I could save lives! I could make money out of it? I could make it into a job! ...for like a year when all the cards are gone and I've wasted my life doing nothing productive for my future. Yep. All the money.

Yeah. I think I was rather leaning towards the NOT letting anyone know. Just to be safe. Yeah.

Cheerleading practice got cancelled due to the rain getting a bit harsher. I was glad because that meant I could work on this random Clow Card sooner. But that also meant working on this strange Clow Card sooner. Aw man. I was full of mixed feelings about this. I loved chasing down Clow Cards and getting them all together and meeting every one and saving all these ninjas but... the battles? The fighting? The fact that Shikamaru practically seemed possessed? It all felt so wrong here, in this peaceful world. I think I might be over thinking it though. Before I came here, when I was a young lad—I mean konoichi—I faced a lot of hardships myself. So this change? Should not affect me. This was what ninjas were all about. Doing our jobs as efficiently, quickly, and quietly as possible. Just because we were in a different world, it did not mean that I was unable.

"I summon you, Rain!" With a whip of my wand touching his card, Nagato appeared, kneeling like all of the cards. It felt funny seeing him like so. I, a little girl, in charge of so many strong ninjas. Heck yeah. It was wonderful! Certainly empowering.

I didn't have to say a word to convey what I wanted him to do. His eyes told me he already understood. I loved this type of leadership-mind-reading thing we had going on. It was nice. It made things so much easier. He stood up and extended a hand into the rain. He closed his eyes and I could feel his magic—sorry, chakra, I guess?—extend into the falling drops and into the skies. His face furrowed, like he was focusing really hard or having difficulty.

Slowly, he extended his second hand towards me. I grabbed it the same way those fancy people grab hands that leads them to the dance floor. Not that we were dancing. But I wouldn't say no to fancy dancing. I like dancing! I just had to look fancy doing it, right? Through the mere touch of our hands though, I felt a wave of energy, like I was connected to the world around me. Nagato must have been sharing his world. My senses were beyond, not seeing but feeling, everywhere but not, like a map of sensations I couldn't explain, but I somehow still understood what was happening around me so clearly. I could feel the rain, the ground, the buildings, the people in the rain, the parc, I even found my own house! But yet it was muffled, blurry at times, like disrupting static, because of the odd Clow rain. The image would have been clearer, I was betting, if the rain was purely Nagato's.

"My apologies. My senses are disrupted." He let go of my hand and I felt all of my senses and feelings and images retract back to my own personal, physical sensations. I let out the breath I was holding, in both relief and disappointment. Man, I could totally get high off that feeling of being one with the world. It was amazing. It was like being a god. No wonder Nagato was always so distant. He was probably always in that cool state.

"I understand." Now that I was back into my own skin, I could see Ino circling around me almost like the paparazzi for the right angles. She clearly wasn't being creepy enough. We were at the clearing at the entrance of the forest, where it would be private enough that the public wouldn't notice us in broad daylight. As I knew she would, Ino had me dress up. This outfit was a simple pink dress with white rims and matching short sleeves. There was a transparent rain-coat plastic fabric that went down my sleeves and to my wrists. As well, it has thigh high white leggings with cute pink boots. In my hair, she attached little wing accessories that kept my hair clipped out of my face. The entire outfit was created with water-repellent fabrics that would protect me in this weather.

"Sakura-chan," Naruto, still a cute little fox I wanted to smother, came up next to us, "I did some thinking and I don't think that the rain has anything to do with this Clow Card."

"You can think?"

"I can if I try, tebayo!"

"Nagato," the man in question turned his face to me in acknowledgement to me saying his name, "didn't you say that the rain reeked of Clow Reed?" He nodded but didn't say anything, simply staring at Naruto to explain. This man had the patience of a thousand Deidei's put together and then some. I also turned to Naruto for answers.

"The Rain is able to fall everywhere, which is why it might feel like it's something similar to the Rain card. However, there's also another—" In the midst of Naruto's explanation, deep from within the forest, when we were least expecting it, out came a pillar of brown wood that smacked squarely into him. Naruto flew and then landed on the ground in a skid, knocked out cold. I went to go after him but Ino waved me away, saying that she got it. I nodded and faced the trees. That attack felt too familiar. I knew it from somewhere. Come on, Sakura! Don't get a mind blank at this moment! Think!

Another pillar of wood came strikingly fast at me. I was forced to stop trying to figure it out and to dodge in order to not get hit. The pillar connected with another tree and caused it to snap and fall over. I gaped and I swallowed. Things just got stupid dangerous and fast.

"Fly!" Deidara appeared, ready to go and dragon created upon contact with the ground. Rain and I hoped on after him, and another pillar of wood came at us just we lifted off the ground. It barely missed us. "Into the trees!" I guided us. "We've got protection in there!"

Nagato placed a hand on my shoulder. My senses expanded again. I tried to see through the forest but there were so many trees and it seemed as if I couldn't see them properly, unlike, say, a house. It suddenly clicked in my mind, what Naruto was trying to say. It wasn't the rain! It was the trees! This city has trees almost around every corner! Plants too! That's why we thought it was the rain: because, like the rain, there were trees everywhere! We just didn't think about it because the rain was so blaringly in our faces! So this Clow Card was trees? Wood? Either way, I understood it all now.

And like the houses that were clear as day, there was one thing that the trees didn't block out.

The lone figure standing in the forest.

"Found him!" I pointed in the direction that my rain senses were feeling. Deidara forwarded us towards it so quick I thought we were on a rollercoaster. And I liked rollercoasters. Though I could do without the rush of it that made me think that I was going to lose the skin on my face by the sheer speed of the machine (and this dragon). Suddenly though, we jerked to a stop and were sent flying into the trees. Nagato was no longer guiding me so my senses disappeared and all I felt was my body ragdoll against so many branches that I knew I was going to bruise in the morning. I eventually was able to grapple onto a branch and glance back to what happened.

There was a wooden pillar embedded deep into Deidara's dragon's stomach, from below. The person must've seen us coming and had prepared this sort of trap for us. He was really good at this battling thing. Dang.

I climbed down the tree I had saved myself with. As soon as I did, pillars of wood came up from around me, building quick and threatening to encage me. I sprinted forward, ignoring any possible pain from the horrible forced handbrake action, and dove through a small space set between two wooden blanks to escape. I glanced back and watched the pillars come together into a square prison box. I let out a sigh of relief for not getting caught in that.

There was a ping from Zaku. I recognized it as a warning and quickly rolled away in a random direction for safety. Vines shot into the ground of my previous position and embedded themselves in, ruining the grass and lifting rocks. I was getting scared with the amount of times I was evading death.

An explosion resounded in the background. It sounded like one of Deidei's classic attacks, so he must've found the assailant and was trying to take him down. I ran in the direction of the noise, being careful to avoid walking on branches or vines that could give away my position. I felt Nagato return to me as card before I reached Deidara. Dei was attacking a person embedded in the shadow of the trees, but to me, it was quite obvious who that was when I spotted him.

"Yamato!" I called. The figure in the trees paused, but then was forced to keep moving when they realized they were still under attack. His arm transformed into a beam of sharpened wood, shooting in my direction. Deidei quickly launched a bomb to intercept it as I jumped away. I called out Shikamaru as I fled, too afraid to stop moving for my life. Unlike the other cards, Yamato made it difficult for me to take a breather to think.

"Sakura, like me, he's been brainwashed to react aggressively to you." Shikamaru was barely in this fight for a few seconds before he was quickly able to make the conclusion. He was easily able to catch up to me and my short legs. Stupid ninjas and their being taller. I hated being 10 and short! I couldn't wait for puberty to strike!

"Can you catch him?" I asked Shika, hoping that there would be some way to finally stop him.

"He's moving too fast. You need to slow him down." was his answer. It was true too: Yamato was simultaneously jumping, running, and throwing attacks at us in any way possible. There was no way that anyone could get him in this super difficult version of him.

"Get ready!" I slid to a stop. I saw Shika stop and prepare his pose. I tossed out Zaku's card and summoned him. "Windy, face him head on and trap him!" The tendrils of wind unfurled from the card (I heard a distinctive "are you trying to kill me, you bitch?" from it as it went) and surged towards Yamato. Yamato was ready though and shot his wood arm beam at us again, to stop the attack in its tracks. Deidara intercepted it with another bomb from his dragon though, which was amazing, because Yamato reeled back, just in time for Zaku to quickly overwhelm him and wrap his windy state around his body in a tight hold. I could tell there was struggle and that Yamato could break free soon. He was clearly tougher than any of us. But not all of at the same time! That was why Shikamaru was a perfect back up. "Now!" The shadow lunged forward from the trees and connected with Yamato's. Checkmate, as Shika would say. "Don't let him go, Zaku." I commanded just as I did my chant for a perfect capture. When Yamato's card landed in my hands, I let out the biggest breath, glad I didn't have to consistently be on my toes. The Wood card had Yamato looking straight at the holder, albeit a lot creepy, with tree vines and his signature wooden pillars circling around him protectively.

Ino came towards me, looking frustrated after finally finding me, with Naruto cradled in an arm and her camera held up in the other.

"I wasn't able to catch any of that!" She whined. "I only got that final capture! I admit, it looks awesome because I shot it, of course, but man I wish I could've gotten the entire fight! It seemed like it was really intense!" She passed me a pen anyway. She backed up to film me as I signed the card. I held it up above my head. Heck yeah. I'm awesome!

"Amazing job guys!" They regrouped towards me and we shared high fives. "We deserve to eat a giant cake for this success!"

"Cake?!" Naruto was woken up in an instant. Wow. Who would've known? "Oh, yeah, Sakura-chan the Clow Card is actually—" he saw that I was holding the card in my hands. I gave him a peace sign. He pouted. "I missed it! Believe it!" Ino nodded in agreement. She was also upset about it. Poor things. Too bad. I wasn't going to risk my life all over again just to replay everything for them. Boo hoo.

I, obviously the smart one because it was still daytime, released all of them from their cards so that we could go to the grocery store for cake. Yamato apologized for his behavior, which I told him Shikamaru beat him to the punch on the whole weird evil possession thing, and then he commented on my child form. I kicked him in the shins for it. He did his weird creepy stare with a flashlight under his chin that creeped me out. Naruto fainted. Ino was really confused.

"Chocolate!" Deidei swooned, face pressed into the glass. "Let's get a chocolate cake, yeah?"

"I want something fruity, like strawberries." I myself was drooling over strawberry cheese cake.

"Now that's nasty." Suigetsu, which was a while since I've seen him today, piped up with a grimace. "Who eats fruit? The good stuff is ice cream cake."

"Lemon pie!" Naruto was clearly in the wrong section, but he did have a good eye for delicious desserts.

"I want coconut cake." Zaku, oddly enough, has weird tastes. We all stared at him. He didn't look one inch ashamed. Good for him. "What? You guys have your gross flavours and so do I."

"What the—"

"Hey!"

"Believe it!"

"It's not gross... really Naruto?"

"Believe it!"

"Let go of the pie, or so help me!"

".... _believe it_." He whispered intensely in my ear. Even if he had obeyed and let go of the pie, I was still scared of that tone. Maybe I _should_ believe it. Maybe there was something I was missing by not believing it.

"I'm staying out of this. I'm watching my weight." Ino backed away from the clear brawl we were going to have any minute now.

"You're ten. That's nuts."

"You can't tell me what to do, forehead!"

"Make me, pig!" Of course, I, the voice of reason, grabbed the first things my hands could grab (the pie Naruto wanted) and charged her. She shrieked and ran. Too bad I was a badass ninja today and took her down. She flailed and I stuck some pie into her face and into her pie hole. It was called a pie hole for a reason!

"FOREHEAD!" Her face was red in anger.

"You're welcome!" I yelled back, though not as intensively. I looked back at the set of three calm Clow cards who haven't contributed. "What do you guys want?"

Nagato looked away. Yamato looked like he wanted to discipline us wild children with more of his scare tactics. And Shikamaru muttered a "troublesome" and walked away. Well then. No dessert for them.

...or us apparently. The manager of the grocery store came to find us to kick us out.

"We'll take the pie. And chocolate cheese cake."

("Woo! Yeah!" Deidei cheered at the sound of chocolate.)

We were totally banned after buying our food.


End file.
